ESPN is apparently hemorrhaging subscribers...
ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More
Quote:In the month of October ESPN lost over 15,000 subscribers a day in October per the latest Nielson estimates.
31 days x 15,000 / day = 465,000 subscribers lost in one month.
How Much Cable Subscribers Pay Per Channel
Quote:Cable providers currently pay a total of $28.32 for a few dozen channels, depending on the provider and the cable package, with ESPN taking over $6 of that. Meanwhile median price paid for each channel a subscriber gets is 14 cents. ESPN is estimated to cost $8.37 per month in 2018, an increase of 39%.
Let's say ESPN makes around $7.00 per subscriber per month.
465,000 lost subscribers in Oct x $7.00 per subscriber = $3,255,000 lost every month going forward.
If the lost on average 300,000 per month over the course of this year...
300,000 x $7.00 = $2,100,000 lost per month
In Jan they would be down $2.1M in revenue.
In Feb they would have $4.2M less in revenue because the subscribers lost in Jan aren't paying and neither are the lost Feb subscribers.
Those are monthly revenue decreases. There's also the cumulative impact.
In Jan they expected an additional $2.1M in revenue that they won't see.
The would expect monthly revenue of $4.2M in addition to the $2.1M they would have earned in Jan. In essence, revenue would be down $6.3M in Feb Year-to-Date.
Jan: $2.1M / YTD $2.1M
Feb: $2.1M x 2 = $4.2M / YTD $6.3M
Mar: $2.1M x 3 = $6.3M / YTD $12.6M
Apr: $2.1M x 4 = $8.4M / YTD $21.0M
May: $2.1M x 5 = $10.5M / YTD $31.5M
Jun: $2.1M x 6 = $12.6M / YTD $44.1M
Jul: $2.1 x 7 = $14.7M / YTD $58.8M
Aug: $2.1M x 8 = $16.8M / YTD $75.6M
Sep: $2.1M x 9 = $18.9 / YTD $94.5M
Oct: $2.1M x 10 = $21.0M / YTD $115.5M
Nov: $2.1M x 11 = $23.1M / YTD $138.6M
Dec: $2.1M x 12 = $25.2M / YTD $163.8M
Next year they have to downgrade their revenue forecast. On top of that, they'll continue losing subscribers which has a cumulative year-over-year impact.
On top of that, as they lose subscribers that means their viewership numbers drop.
As fewer and fewer eyes are watching the games advertisers will want to pay less for commercials.
Lost ad revenue coupled with lost subscriber revenue is a serious problem.