Tt post jan 16 2016

Jan 13, 2016 WaPo story about ESPN.

A survey of 1,582 consumers commissioned last week by BTIG Research found that 56 percent of respondents would remove ESPN and ESPN2 from their cable packages to save $8 per month, which is about the cost cable subscribers pay to receive the networks.

Broken down by gender, 60 percent of female respondents and 49 percent of male respondents said they would remove the sports networks to save money.

“Even more interesting, results did not vary by age, with Millennials, Gen X’ers and Boomers all similar, adjusting for the survey’s margin of error,” BTIG Research’s Richard Greenfield wrote in a story about the survey results.

ESPN’s business plan has long been dependent on fees paid by cable subscribers, most of whom pay for the channel whether they watch it or not as part of a so-called “bundle.”

[ESPN's] subscription base is down to 92 million homes, the lowest in nearly a decade, and the operating profit Disney expects to receive from ESPN — its most profitable cable channel — is expected to flatten this year, leading to a cost-cutting mandate from Disney.

Jan 15, 2016 qz.com story about the same survey.

85% said they would not pay $20 a month for ESPN and ESPN2 if the channels were only available as a standalone service. An additional 9% said they weren’t sure. And only 6% said they would be willing to pay for the hypothetical platform.

Additional commentary via Mediagazer

http://mediagazer.com/160115/p19#a160115p19

A tweet

Sports fans ALWAYS overestimate how many people are sports fans.

#sports #media #tv #business