(05-08-2018 11:47 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-08-2018 09:55 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Meanwhile, ESPN just lost 500k subscribers in April alone.

Disney needs this deal.

Comcast needs something much more than Disney does. Comcast is anchored down by the dinosaur cable business. Look at those numbers you posted yourself: Cable is bleeding customers. Even the legacy satellite companies are bleeding customers -- all they have to slow the bleeding is their new "over the top" services (Sling and DTV Now). Comcast doesn't have that; they're behind the curve.

ESPN will have transitional pains as they move from being delivered by cable to the over-the-top services or their own streaming subscription services -- and every other "content company" will, too -- but they'll eventually get there. Comcast, if they don't buy or sell their way out of their dependence on the cable business, then eventually they're going to have the same fate as AOL and be a shadow of what they once were.

That could be another reason why Comcast is rumored to be trying this "Hail Mary" of taking on another $60 billion in debt to keep Fox from combining with Disney.

Very good observation. For all of ESPN’s issues, it still provides unique and exclusive content. That goes for much of the rest of Disney’s businesses and IP, as well. Comcast actually has a good amount of content with NBC Universal, but no one has the scale of Disney to create a service to be able to truly go it alone. If people are going to toast the ails of the cable industry with ESPN’s subscriber losses, the company that’s losing even *more* is Comcast because they’re losing the revenue of the *entire* cable bills of cord cutters (not just the subscriber fees for their particular channels).