(05-25-2022 07:57 AM)johnbragg Wrote: (05-25-2022 07:37 AM)GTFletch Wrote: Ok so ESPN loses eight million cable and satellite subscribers in 2021, but how many streaming subscribers did ESPN gain. For example my house cut the cord, but we subscribe to Direct TV Stream to get ESPN/Fox/RSN/CBSN networks. I wonder how many cord cutters subscribe to streaming spoting content. My guess is alot.
That's counted in the 75 million, I think.
Quote: By cutting the cord I only pay $150 for internet and Streaming Services and my sons who attend college can also watch Direct TV stream with no increase cost. If I pay for cable or satellite I would spend over $200 per month for my house and then have to pay for cable at both universities. I believe streaming saves families money.
You worked the angles and shaved a few dollars off the bill. But you still pay up, because they have the content you want (ESPN, Fox, RSN, CSBN). ESPN only works (and Fox News) because they can compel everyone who watches cable to pay (and pay a lot) for their channel. Because of ESPN or Fox News goes dark on a cable system, that cable system is going to lose a LOT of subscribers in a hurry.
It's not switching from cable to a high-priced stream that's ESPN's problem. You're still paying ESPN their $10 a month. It's the people who just get internet for say half the price of the cable & internet package. Then they get a streaming service for $10 a month.
My offspring, 17, 14 and 14 do not watch "television." That's not about us being good parents and limiting their screen time. They get TONS of screen time, as much as us Gen X latchkey kids ever did. But all the 14 year olds watch is stuff on youtube. (Exception: my 17 year old watches Criminal Minds on Netflix and movies, usually on Disney+).
Not sure where you have gotten your information, However the 75M figure(which is wrong by 1M at the end of 2021) does not include streaming. Let me try to explain, you can also verify my info via links I provide below.
ESPN's past, present and future: Cable TV collides with streaming
Dec 8, 2021
TV: 76 million pay-TV subscribers have access to ESPN, per Disney's annual SEC filing. That's a 10% decrease from 84 million at the end of fiscal 2020 — and a 24% drop from a peak of 100.1 million in 2011.
Streaming: ESPN+, which launched in 2018, ended the fiscal year with
17 million subscribers, up 66% year-over-year.
State of play: Cable subscribers pay nearly $10 per month for ESPN and ESPN2, while ESPN+ subscribers pay $6.99 per month. So you can understand why Disney is in no rush to exit the cable business.
But that approach conflicts with Disney's overall content strategy, which is to go "all-in" on streaming. In fact, some analysts have even questioned whether Disney should spin off ESPN due to this strategic misalignment.
Put it this way: Disney makes more money from non-sports fans via streaming (Disney+, Hulu) than cable (entertainment networks like FX don't command high ad rates). The reverse is true for ESPN, which makes more money from cable subscribers than ESPN+ subscribers, not less.
What they're saying: ESPN probably won't consider a direct-to-consumer service until the pay-TV bundle falls below 50 million U.S. households, (72.2M as of 2Q 2022) which could happen in the next five years, CNBC reports.
The big picture: ESPN launched in 1979 as a TV network but has since expanded far beyond the living room and become a multi-platform behemoth — from the web to radio to fantasy sports.
Digital: ESPN Digital attracted a record 120 million unique visitors in October, including 95.2 million to ESPN.com alone.
Social: ESPN is Disney's largest social media brand, generating 63% of the company's total actions on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
What to watch: ESPN will have to figure out how to make up roughly $3 billion in annual lost pay-TV revenue that's coming in the next few years.
The plan, per CNBC, is to incrementally raise the price of ESPN+ as it adds more content, while maintaining its contractual pay-TV obligations (exclusive content like MNF's "ManningCast"). Disney will also "aggressively" pursue sports betting, which is now legal and operational in 30 states, plus D.C. "We have to seriously consider getting into gambling in a bigger way," CEO Bob Chapek told investors last month. A future "ESPN Sportsbook" seems likely.
Of note: Disney has said it may consider bundling ESPN+, Disney+, and Hulu into a single service. In the meantime, it just added ESPN+ and Disney+ to its Hulu live TV bundle ($72.99 per month).
The bottom line: Traditional TV is a leaky bucket that will eventually run out of water. But it's going to be a slow bleed, with networks like ESPN clinging to the cable bundle until the bitter end.
Link
https://www.axios.com/2021/12/08/espn-st...ble-disney
UPDATE: ESPN+ subscriber numbers in the U.S. 2019-2022
The Walt Disney Company announced that its sports streaming service ESPN+ had around
22.3 million U.S. subscribers at the end of its
second fiscal quarter of 2022. The service accumulated a good number of subscribers since Disney's first fiscal quarter of 2019, growing its subscriber base from 1.4 million to approximately 22.3 million since then.
Link
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1054...criber-us/
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? 72.2M plus 22.3M
ESPN has 94.5M total subscibers, which is not anywhere close from losing 8 Million, in fact they are closer today at getting back to 100 total subscribers that they had in 2011 then they were in 2018 when they launched ESPN+.
Also
as of August 13, 2021 Disney nears 174M subscriptions across Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu. Not all areas of Disney’s streaming business are on an upswing,Hulu’s pay-TV subscriber base has shrunk from 4 million subscribers, as of Jan. 2, to 3.7 million subscribers, as of July 3. That correlates pretty closely with Disney raising the monthly subscription price of Hulu’s pay-TV service from $54.99 to $64.99 in December 2020 and the loss of RSN channels at the same time, IMHO.
Link
https://digiday.com/future-of-tv/cheat-s...-and-hulu/