Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

They are doing that. It is working for them, but the trend of making more money with fewer viewers might not be helpful to college teams looking for greater exposure. All college conferences except the SEC and Big Ten will have to accept smaller audiences in exchange for more money from streaming services, and as another thread on this board indicates, those conferences will grab every dollar they can get even if it means they're making more money while their games are seen by fewer viewers.

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

(05-10-2022 10:12 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  I don't mind seeing The ACC, Big 10, SEC and PAC 12 Networks die. That is where the most of the fees from Cable and dish comes from. It is forced on us by ESPN mainly, but they just don't have much live events anymore. ESPN in the 80s and 90s had more sporting events from fishing, hunting, scuba diving, pro-wrestling, autoracing and all that which could cover their channels 24 hours a day. One of my favorite channels that they had was Classic which I liked to go back and remember all the old wrestling and roller derby that they had shown in the 80s on ESPN 2.

(05-11-2022 09:54 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 10:12 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  I don't mind seeing The ACC, Big 10, SEC and PAC 12 Networks die. That is where the most of the fees from Cable and dish comes from. It is forced on us by ESPN mainly, but they just don't have much live events anymore. ESPN in the 80s and 90s had more sporting events from fishing, hunting, scuba diving, pro-wrestling, autoracing and all that which could cover their channels 24 hours a day. One of my favorite channels that they had was Classic which I liked to go back and remember all the old wrestling and roller derby that they had shown in the 80s on ESPN 2.

ACCN Live Sports, next 4 days

5/11
1:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: Louisville vs Syracuse
3:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: Georgia Tech vs NC State
7:00 pm - Baseball: Virginia Tech vs Liberty

5/12
11:00 am - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
1:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
5:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
7:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal

5/13
1:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: semifinal
3:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: semifinal
6:00 pm - Baseball: N Carolina vs Wake Forest

5/14
1:00 pm - Baseball: Virginia Tech vs Louisville
4:00 pm - Baseball: Notre Dame vs Pitt
7:00 pm - Baseball: Florida State vs Miami

(05-13-2022 06:04 AM)whittx Wrote:  

(05-12-2022 08:05 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(05-11-2022 09:54 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 10:12 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  I don't mind seeing The ACC, Big 10, SEC and PAC 12 Networks die. That is where the most of the fees from Cable and dish comes from. It is forced on us by ESPN mainly, but they just don't have much live events anymore. ESPN in the 80s and 90s had more sporting events from fishing, hunting, scuba diving, pro-wrestling, autoracing and all that which could cover their channels 24 hours a day. One of my favorite channels that they had was Classic which I liked to go back and remember all the old wrestling and roller derby that they had shown in the 80s on ESPN 2.

ACCN Live Sports, next 4 days

5/11
1:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: Louisville vs Syracuse
3:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: Georgia Tech vs NC State
7:00 pm - Baseball: Virginia Tech vs Liberty

5/12
11:00 am - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
1:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
5:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
7:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal

5/13
1:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: semifinal
3:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: semifinal
6:00 pm - Baseball: N Carolina vs Wake Forest

5/14
1:00 pm - Baseball: Virginia Tech vs Louisville
4:00 pm - Baseball: Notre Dame vs Pitt
7:00 pm - Baseball: Florida State vs Miami

What live events do they have after Memorial Day? In June? July?

None, unless one of the conference teams is playing basketball out of country.

Actually The ACC has a daily live sports show called Packer and Durham. It’s 3 hours every weekday from 7AM to 10AM. An entertaining and informative show.

(05-14-2022 08:08 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 10:12 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  I don't mind seeing The ACC, Big 10, SEC and PAC 12 Networks die. That is where the most of the fees from Cable and dish comes from. It is forced on us by ESPN mainly, but they just don't have much live events anymore. ESPN in the 80s and 90s had more sporting events from fishing, hunting, scuba diving, pro-wrestling, autoracing and all that which could cover their channels 24 hours a day. One of my favorite channels that they had was Classic which I liked to go back and remember all the old wrestling and roller derby that they had shown in the 80s on ESPN 2.

(05-11-2022 09:54 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 10:12 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  I don't mind seeing The ACC, Big 10, SEC and PAC 12 Networks die. That is where the most of the fees from Cable and dish comes from. It is forced on us by ESPN mainly, but they just don't have much live events anymore. ESPN in the 80s and 90s had more sporting events from fishing, hunting, scuba diving, pro-wrestling, autoracing and all that which could cover their channels 24 hours a day. One of my favorite channels that they had was Classic which I liked to go back and remember all the old wrestling and roller derby that they had shown in the 80s on ESPN 2.

ACCN Live Sports, next 4 days

5/11
1:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: Louisville vs Syracuse
3:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: Georgia Tech vs NC State
7:00 pm - Baseball: Virginia Tech vs Liberty

5/12
11:00 am - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
1:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
5:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
7:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal

5/13
1:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: semifinal
3:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: semifinal
6:00 pm - Baseball: N Carolina vs Wake Forest

5/14
1:00 pm - Baseball: Virginia Tech vs Louisville
4:00 pm - Baseball: Notre Dame vs Pitt
7:00 pm - Baseball: Florida State vs Miami

(05-13-2022 06:04 AM)whittx Wrote:  

(05-12-2022 08:05 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(05-11-2022 09:54 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 10:12 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  I don't mind seeing The ACC, Big 10, SEC and PAC 12 Networks die. That is where the most of the fees from Cable and dish comes from. It is forced on us by ESPN mainly, but they just don't have much live events anymore. ESPN in the 80s and 90s had more sporting events from fishing, hunting, scuba diving, pro-wrestling, autoracing and all that which could cover their channels 24 hours a day. One of my favorite channels that they had was Classic which I liked to go back and remember all the old wrestling and roller derby that they had shown in the 80s on ESPN 2.

ACCN Live Sports, next 4 days

5/11
1:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: Louisville vs Syracuse
3:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: Georgia Tech vs NC State
7:00 pm - Baseball: Virginia Tech vs Liberty

5/12
11:00 am - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
1:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
5:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal
7:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: quarterfinal

5/13
1:00 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: semifinal
3:30 pm - ACC Softball Tournament: semifinal
6:00 pm - Baseball: N Carolina vs Wake Forest

5/14
1:00 pm - Baseball: Virginia Tech vs Louisville
4:00 pm - Baseball: Notre Dame vs Pitt
7:00 pm - Baseball: Florida State vs Miami

What live events do they have after Memorial Day? In June? July?

None, unless one of the conference teams is playing basketball out of country.

Actually The ACC has a daily live sports show called Packer and Durham. It’s 3 hours every weekday from 7AM to 10AM. An entertaining and informative show.

But it's another radio show on TV, not anything with live sports. There isn't even a Feinbaum or Marty and McGee to cover afternoons or Saturday mornings.

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

They are. At a shareholder meeting when they launched the Disney streaming service, Disney's CEO said they had budgeted for several years of billion dollar losses on streaming in order to catch up to where Netflix was. Netflix itself was in the red for many years. Can't start from nothing and ramp up a giant business that quickly without losing tons of money for a few years or several years.

So Disney is using profits from its very profitable but slowly dying cable operations to finance what they hope will eventually be their next profitable line of business.

(05-15-2022 02:04 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

They are. At a shareholder meeting when they launched the Disney streaming service, Disney's CEO said they had budgeted for several years of billion dollar losses on streaming in order to catch up to where Netflix was. Netflix itself was in the red for many years. Can't start from nothing and ramp up a giant business that quickly without losing tons of money for a few years or several years.

So Disney is using profits from its very profitable but slowly dying cable operations to finance what they hope will eventually be their next profitable line of business.

I wonder ... what are the "startup costs" for a streaming service? It's just, well, streaming.

Old content, like say the Avengers movies, are already paid for. New content, like a brand new Star Wars series for Disney+, has to be paid for, but that's an ongoing, operational cost.

So I am curious about the economics of these various services.

(05-15-2022 02:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 02:04 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

They are. At a shareholder meeting when they launched the Disney streaming service, Disney's CEO said they had budgeted for several years of billion dollar losses on streaming in order to catch up to where Netflix was. Netflix itself was in the red for many years. Can't start from nothing and ramp up a giant business that quickly without losing tons of money for a few years or several years.

So Disney is using profits from its very profitable but slowly dying cable operations to finance what they hope will eventually be their next profitable line of business.

I wonder ... what are the "startup costs" for a streaming service? It's just, well, streaming.

Old content, like say the Avengers movies, are already paid for. New content, like a brand new Star Wars series for Disney+, has to be paid for, but that's an ongoing, operational cost.

So I am curious about the economics of these various services.

It's not just about the programming. You need to have the bandwidth and servers at a scale to handle millions of simultaneous viewers and to pay the folks to build said system, both from a software and hardware standpoint.

(05-15-2022 02:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 02:04 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

They are. At a shareholder meeting when they launched the Disney streaming service, Disney's CEO said they had budgeted for several years of billion dollar losses on streaming in order to catch up to where Netflix was. Netflix itself was in the red for many years. Can't start from nothing and ramp up a giant business that quickly without losing tons of money for a few years or several years.

So Disney is using profits from its very profitable but slowly dying cable operations to finance what they hope will eventually be their next profitable line of business.

I wonder ... what are the "startup costs" for a streaming service? It's just, well, streaming.

Old content, like say the Avengers movies, are already paid for. New content, like a brand new Star Wars series for Disney+, has to be paid for, but that's an ongoing, operational cost.

So I am curious about the economics of these various services.

The capital startup costs are super expensive to get the technical infrastructure in place. Then, as the service grows, the day-to-day costs increase because the streamer is also directly distributing the content (as opposed to a third party distributor like a cable provider), so they have to constantly scale up that infrastructure accordingly (e.g. cloud services costs). Those are infrastructure costs for streamers that are beyond the content costs.

That’s part of why streamers aren’t as profitable as cable networks (at least as of now). As a streaming service grows, its delivery costs go up at the same time. In contrast, cable channels don’t take on the delivery costs (as that’s controlled by cable providers themselves), so it essentially costs the same to run ESPN whether it has 90 million households or 10 million households. The economies of scale aren’t as directly apparent for streamers compared to cable. It doesn’t mean that they can’t be profitable, but it would realistically be very difficult for any of them to ever deliver profit margins at the scale of ESPN has done for the past 20 years.

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

Probably. But I suspect the biggest cost has to be new exclusive Disney Plus programming (Mandelorian, Marvel series content, Disney Plus movies, etc). Those series are expensed immediately in the current year,---but the reality is these productions will continue to be revenue producing attractions for Disney Plus for years to come. I suspect they also serve as fan multipliers that will drive future Marvel big screen block buster franchises in the future. Its entirely possible their business model integration is a bit more complex than just considering the streaming profit-and-loss statement.

(05-15-2022 03:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

Probably. But I suspect the biggest cost has to be new exclusive Disney Plus programming (Mandelorian, Marvel series content, Disney Plus movies, etc). Those series are expensed immediately in the current year,---but the reality is these productions will continue to be revenue producing attractions for Disney Plus for years to come. I suspect they also serve as fan multipliers that will drive future Marvel big screen block buster franchises in the future. Its entirely possible their business model integration is a bit more complex than just considering the streaming profit-and-loss statement.

Yes, this is a good point since every streamer has different priorities. Disney+ is essentially an encapsulation of Disney’s long-time synergy strategy of having a virtuous circle of their brands powering multiple business segments: a franchise movie sells tickets, which then sells a bunch of toys, clothes and other merchandise for that franchise, which then gets moved to Disney+, ABC and Disney’s cable channels, which then creates an attraction for that franchise at Disney’s theme parks, which then spurs interest in a new movie in franchise to start the circle all over again. Some properties go even father than that - a movie that also has a great soundtrack like The Lion King or Frozen can power music sales (where we should note that music streaming is actually VERY profitable for music rights holders compared to video streaming) and lead to Broadway musicals, which is another virtuous circle on the music side.

HBOMax, Paramount+ and Peacock all are trying to follow the same Disney model to varying degrees, although none of them have the complete circle of movies/merchandise/streaming/TV/music/theme parks at the same scale as Disney. Comcast is probably the closest to having having that circle, but it has the weakest performing streaming service so far with Peacock.

Apple and Amazon are a little different where their respective streaming services are more about filling out the ecosystem for their respective retail products and services as opposed to the streaming service itself. Essentially, Apple and Amazon have made the bet that if their streaming services will get you to spend a few percentage points more on Apple product or ordering through Prime every year, that’s a much bigger pot of money way beyond the streaming service fees.

Netflix is really the “pure” streamer of the group where the streaming service is truly the sun that the entire company revolves around and it’s not about synergyzing or leveraging the streaming service for other parts of the company.

(05-13-2022 01:11 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  What's wrong with D2, D3, and NAIA going to the spring?? What's wrong with FCS giving spring another chance???

Speaking for NDSU -- their athletic program receives the majority of their funding from Fan Support -- Ticket Sales (which rival the top of the G5), and Contributions. These fans and alums want their football in the Fall -- they have zero interest in moving to the spring... and no network is going to pay them the funding they will lose from the move to the Spring.

Spring FCS Football was tried last year... ESPN was only interested in broadcasting Deion Sanders coach -- they ignored the rest of the subdivision (except for a contractual responsibility to broadcast some of the FCS Playoffs) -- they had their chance -- and blew it!

Spring College Football is a Dead Issue!

(05-10-2022 09:46 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 09:18 AM)Yosef181 Wrote:  The only reason to have cable/satellite anymore is for live sports. If it weren't a requirement where I rent, I wouldn't have it.

I have a heavy cable bill, about $210 a month (which includes my internet service), and yeah, much of what I watch is live sports, but I have shopped around and don't see how streaming alone could save me much money.

IIRC, there was a time maybe 6-7 years ago, when streaming was new and streamers were offering awesome deals, where you could "cut the cord" and save a lot. But as with everything, markets converge, and streaming prices have risen, while cable channels have responded by making their channels available via streaming, not just tethered to the home TVs.

So my solution has been "both". I have the cable package, and also pay about $30 a month on top of that for the Disney Bundle and Netflix. I also get Peacock for "free" as part of my cable deal.

I pay $130 a month as a cord cutter. I have internet and DirectTV Stream as they have the RSNs. I have verizon cell service and they pay for my Hulu/Disney/ESPN+ monthly fee.

One advantage of DirectTV Stream is that there is no IP Drift (Hulu/Youtube) so my son at Auburn can watch Direct TV Stream, My Son at Georgia Tech can watch Direct TV Stream and I can watch it at home. It is expensive however I only have one bill for all three of us. (FWIW: AT Auburn my son pays for his Internet, GT provides free Internet to the on campus students)

(05-10-2022 09:46 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 09:18 AM)Yosef181 Wrote:  The only reason to have cable/satellite anymore is for live sports. If it weren't a requirement where I rent, I wouldn't have it.

I have a heavy cable bill, about $210 a month (which includes my internet service), and yeah, much of what I watch is live sports, but I have shopped around and don't see how streaming alone could save me much money.

IIRC, there was a time maybe 6-7 years ago, when streaming was new and streamers were offering awesome deals, where you could "cut the cord" and save a lot. But as with everything, markets converge, and streaming prices have risen, while cable channels have responded by making their channels available via streaming, not just tethered to the home TVs.

So my solution has been "both". I have the cable package, and also pay about $30 a month on top of that for the Disney Bundle and Netflix. I also get Peacock for "free" as part of my cable deal.

I'm assuming you have Xfinity.

(05-15-2022 02:24 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 02:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 02:04 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

They are. At a shareholder meeting when they launched the Disney streaming service, Disney's CEO said they had budgeted for several years of billion dollar losses on streaming in order to catch up to where Netflix was. Netflix itself was in the red for many years. Can't start from nothing and ramp up a giant business that quickly without losing tons of money for a few years or several years.

So Disney is using profits from its very profitable but slowly dying cable operations to finance what they hope will eventually be their next profitable line of business.

I wonder ... what are the "startup costs" for a streaming service? It's just, well, streaming.

Old content, like say the Avengers movies, are already paid for. New content, like a brand new Star Wars series for Disney+, has to be paid for, but that's an ongoing, operational cost.

So I am curious about the economics of these various services.

The capital startup costs are super expensive to get the technical infrastructure in place. Then, as the service grows, the day-to-day costs increase because the streamer is also directly distributing the content (as opposed to a third party distributor like a cable provider), so they have to constantly scale up that infrastructure accordingly (e.g. cloud services costs). Those are infrastructure costs for streamers that are beyond the content costs.

That’s part of why streamers aren’t as profitable as cable networks (at least as of now). As a streaming service grows, its delivery costs go up at the same time. In contrast, cable channels don’t take on the delivery costs (as that’s controlled by cable providers themselves), so it essentially costs the same to run ESPN whether it has 90 million households or 10 million households. The economies of scale aren’t as directly apparent for streamers compared to cable. It doesn’t mean that they can’t be profitable, but it would realistically be very difficult for any of them to ever deliver profit margins at the scale of ESPN has done for the past 20 years.

Thanks, that's very interesting.

FWIW, I would regard only the first part of what you talk about, the capital startup costs to install the initial technical infrastructure (servers, bandwidth, app development) and the people hired to develop and install all that as 'startup' costs. Also, costs incurred to market the service initially, and to acquire intellectual property, like a back catalog of shows, if the streamer-startup doesn't already own that.

But the ongoing expansion of infrastructure and staff needed to service it as the subscriber base grows are IMO operational costs, like the costs of developing new content.

So I am not convinced that startup costs are a massive thing here, at least not on an ongoing basis as the other poster asked, meaning four years after introduction of ESPN+ and two and half years after Disney+, is Disney still including startup costs in its calculation of losses. I would suspect that as big as those startup costs may have been, and I don't doubt they were large, they have pretty much all been accounted for by now, and the biggest contributor to any current losses are what I would regard as 'operational'.

But I don't know.

(05-15-2022 03:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 03:34 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Disney and ESPN+ keep growing and growing. They may lose some cable subscribers, but are probably making it up and more with streaming.

That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

Probably. But I suspect the biggest cost has to be new exclusive Disney Plus programming (Mandelorian, Marvel series content, Disney Plus movies, etc). Those series are expensed immediately in the current year,---but the reality is these productions will continue to be revenue producing attractions for Disney Plus for years to come. I suspect they also serve as fan multipliers that will drive future Marvel big screen block buster franchises in the future. Its entirely possible their business model integration is a bit more complex than just considering the streaming profit-and-loss statement.

That's my sense as well. IOWs, I don't believe startup costs are likely distorting the 'true' ongoing, operational profitability of these services, as I think the biggest costs are operational. Could be wrong, but that's my sense.

For example, a couple months ago, NBCUniversal announced they planned to spend $3 Billion in 2022 on content alone, that seems like a big chunk of change.

Netflix spends about $28 million a month on streaming services and Cloud Services (AWS). It spends about $2 Billion a month on content.

(05-16-2022 07:49 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 03:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-13-2022 06:44 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  That and there is an escalator in carriage agreements that automatically bumps the price up each year. So, crazy as it sounds, thus far, because the automatic escalator percentage is higher than the annual subscriber loss percentage, carriage fee income continues to rise for ESPN---and thats before you count ESPN+. That said, the reality is that model is not going to be sustainable for much longer. Eventually, as fewer and fewer are paying higher and higher prices----the numbers are going to get out of control and subscriber support from that model will suddenly collapse.

Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

Probably. But I suspect the biggest cost has to be new exclusive Disney Plus programming (Mandelorian, Marvel series content, Disney Plus movies, etc). Those series are expensed immediately in the current year,---but the reality is these productions will continue to be revenue producing attractions for Disney Plus for years to come. I suspect they also serve as fan multipliers that will drive future Marvel big screen block buster franchises in the future. Its entirely possible their business model integration is a bit more complex than just considering the streaming profit-and-loss statement.

That's my sense as well. IOWs, I don't believe startup costs are likely distorting the 'true' ongoing, operational profitability of these services, as I think the biggest costs are operational. Could be wrong, but that's my sense.

For example, a couple months ago, NBCUniversal announced they planned to spend $3 Billion in 2022 on content alone, that seems like a big chunk of change.

Netflix spends about $28 million a month on streaming services and Cloud Services (AWS). It spends about $2 Billion a month on content.

thats a ton of investment to recoup

(05-16-2022 08:14 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-16-2022 07:49 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 03:08 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:53 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(05-15-2022 12:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Disney reported the other day that its cable TV had net revenue of $2.8B while its streaming services lost $880M.

Cable is largely ESPN and its family. Streaming includes Disney+ and Hulu, so ESPN+ isn't responsible for all of that loss, but from what I've read it is losing quite a bit of money right now.

And I understand why - as a subscriber, I think it is an amazing deal. The amount of stuff you get for your $7 a month is off the chain. Can't go on forever, I reckon.

So IMO yes, there are problems with the cable model, but also with the streaming model.

Seven years after streaming became kind of a real thing, cable still makes a lot more money.

I wonder if startup costs are still being considered for Disney+

Probably. But I suspect the biggest cost has to be new exclusive Disney Plus programming (Mandelorian, Marvel series content, Disney Plus movies, etc). Those series are expensed immediately in the current year,---but the reality is these productions will continue to be revenue producing attractions for Disney Plus for years to come. I suspect they also serve as fan multipliers that will drive future Marvel big screen block buster franchises in the future. Its entirely possible their business model integration is a bit more complex than just considering the streaming profit-and-loss statement.

That's my sense as well. IOWs, I don't believe startup costs are likely distorting the 'true' ongoing, operational profitability of these services, as I think the biggest costs are operational. Could be wrong, but that's my sense.

For example, a couple months ago, NBCUniversal announced they planned to spend $3 Billion in 2022 on content alone, that seems like a big chunk of change.

Netflix spends about $28 million a month on streaming services and Cloud Services (AWS). It spends about $2 Billion a month on content.

thats a ton of investment to recoup

Content is a real ongoing cost for streaming. "Subscriber Churn" is real, with some people dropping a service once a favorite show ends.

You have to constantly be developing new content to keep people interested. Those ongoing costs are high.