ESPN reportedly slated for another huge round of layoffs
 

ESPN is reportedly preparing for another round of cost-cutting — and this time, the cuts could be even more significant, at least in terms of name recognition.

Michael Rand
March 6, 2017

http://strib.mn/2lPzMix



News of layoffs in the media industry have become all-too-familiar in recent years, owing to declining user rates and hollowed out advertising revenue.

Even sports media behemoth ESPN hasn’t been immune to the trend; we’re barely a year removed from a round of layoffs during which the company shed about 300 employees.

And now ESPN is reportedly preparing for another round of cost-cutting — and this time, the cuts could be even more significant, at least in terms of name recognition. SI’s Richard Deitsch has some of the details in a recent column:

SI has learned that ESPN will have significant cost-cutting over the next four months on its talent side (people in front of the camera or audio/digital screen). Multiple sources said ESPN has been tasked with paring tens of millions of staff salary from its payroll, including staffers many viewers and readers will recognize.

The reasons offered by Deitsch are familiar: ESPN’s subscriber base is shrinking — from 100 million early in 2011 to less than 88 million in a February estimate. Every lost subscriber costs the company more than $8 a month in lost revenue between ESPN and ESPN. That’s roughly $100 a year per subscriber. Multiply that by 12 million lost subscribers in the last six years and you see a $1.2 billion (per year) deficit from where ESPN could have been if the subscriber base had stayed flat.

Combine that with declining ad revenue — which caused the stock of Disney, ESPN’s parent company, to tumble at its last reporting date last month — and you have a dangerous mix that leads to layoffs.

That said, the reported layoffs also seem a little disingenuous — a move designed to appease shareholders more than something truly necessary in the moment.

I say that because even though ESPN’s subscriber base has declined steadily in recent years, their fee per user has gone up significantly in the same span. As of mid-2016, the fee for ESPN alone was $7.21 per month — up more than a dollar from 2014 and more than double what it was in 2007. Basically, ESPN is offsetting lost revenue from lost subscribers by making those who still get the network pay more.

This math is over-simplified with round numbers, but it’s still relevant: 88 million subscribers paying $7 a month ($616 million) is more revenue than 100 million subscribers paying $6 a month ($600 million).

Continuously cranking up that fee might be a dangerous game to play since there is a risk of accelerating the spiral of those ditching cable (and therefore ESPN) because of high fees. But sports are a major part of the reason subscribers stick with cable/satellite packages. What’s another dollar or two to die-hard fans? We’ll find out.

This is why I dumped DIS

People still watch ESPN? Ridiculous.

ESPN has shifted too far left for mainstream America.


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burn it to the ground for all I care.
keep the live sports and 30 for 30 stuff, but shit can all the tired fake debate shows.
why anyone would want to watch PTI, Around the Horn, and whatever the hell else they have is beyond me. It's horrible, followed closely by sports radio.

gone are the days of just doing highlights (which WAS handy back in the day when you'd want to see who won a particular game etc). Now it's nothing but commentary, political and social, and feel good stories that feel so contrived.

Doubt that has anything to do with the layoffs

Why?

Thanks Trump!

Bring back Austrailian rules football!

I don't know, but those commercials for SC6 look pretty dumb.

Also...they could probably trim some of their NFL experts....how many of those do they need anyway?

I remember the good old days of Australian Rules Football.

Ha....agreed!

Why would it?

Too many women personalities? Because they showed Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend?

Sarcasometer needs adjusting on my part??

The only time I watch ESPN now is if one of my teams is actually playing in a game they're broadcasting. I watch MLB Network for baseball news and NFL Network for football news, and I don't give a **** about anything else. Especially their horseshit liberal agenda pushing.

They can kill the whole damned thing as far as I'm concerned.

At long last.......'Playmakers' season 2!!

I watch alot of live sports on ESPN, but I can't think of the last "show" I watched on there. Mostly due to being at work during that time, but it seems to be played out.

I enjoy some of their xm shows

These articles always pop up focused on ESPN, and the hate spews (i.e., this thread).

This is going on across the entire cable industry and has little to do with the content of that one channel. ESPN is probably one of the safest commodities in television.

Pretty much.

And yet Linda Cohn still pulls a paycheck.

Hopefully they don't dump the WSOP, 2017 is the last year they are under contract. Poker is a declining in popularity at least on television so it's kind of expected it will have to find another home. But it's super cheap programming! Come on ESPN, renew renew.

I only watch ESPN during the college football season. I listen to an hour of Rusillo every day.

Everything else is not to my liking. They try to drive the narrative way more than they should.

I'm not sure how accurate that is. Yeah cable across the board is suffering, but ESPN is saddled with some beyond terrible tv deals that other networks don't have to deal with.

Agreed

Bingo

Right on

I'm with you there !

Chuck keeping it real...

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Still not sure what this means.

Since being direct is in my nature: KChiefs1, are you trying to imply that Espn is too liberal for American Sports broadcasting? Or was your comment just a CPlanet lexicon-ish type comment?

Don't watch ESPN since Erin Anderson left

I love what Kenny said, too. "Go to sleep, wake up, and you see the same dude."

I don't watch Espn much because it's become to East/West Coast driven as well as too "empty". Quick one liners and fake debate instead of actual stories that are interesting.

If flyover country isn't important enough for them to cover then it isn't worth me watching.

A few years ago I wouldn't have considered signing up for a cable package without Espn in it. Now outside of an occasional game broadcast, I don't ever even turn to Espn.

Chris Berman timed the market perfectly!

That was pretty funny. Those guys have a lot of fun.

I'm really wondering about this. Maybe I just don't watch enough ESPN, but what agenda?

ESPN has shows?

I didn't realize it had anything other than Monday Night Football and

Jayhawk basketball...

Who would have thunk? :shrug:

Fine by me. Too much East/West coast bias. Can also toss in SEC bias as well.

Good riddance.

Can't believe they went with Michael and Jemele for prime time sportscenter. Guess they are going full Winn Dixie/KFC over there.

Agree on all points.

Live sports is the only reason to watch ESPN.

MLBN & NFLN have killed ESPN as far as I'm concerned. Breaking news I go to them instead of ESPN.


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A little of both. ESPN tends to push their agenda a little too hard for my taste.



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They USED to be my go to watch way back in the day when I worked nights. I always enjoyed watching the worlds strongest man competition, Aussie Rules football and they used to show a lot of boxing. I can't even watch SC anymore. It's not sports driven anymore, it's star athlete driven. If you want to hear about something other than the biggest most popular or most controversial athletes ESPN isn't the place to go.

Maybe spending $125 million on that new set wasn't such a good idea.

Giving Bruce(Caitlyn)Jenner the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for heroism, endorsing militant pressure group Black Lives Matter at the ESPYs, firing Curt Schilling for not being more supportive about transgender bathrooms and awarding President Obama a spurious “First Fan” award as part of its MLK Day tribute.

There was also the NFL-National Anthems controversy in which ESPN seemed to sympathize with the anti-American actions of Colin Kaepernick, and when the network turned a blind eye when panelist Kevin Blackistone called the national anthem a “war anthem.”


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This is exactly what they need to do; show the obscure stuff.

Cable

KODI

Was just about to say that without Berman hosting the Countdown/Primetime shows, I now have zero reason to watch any ESPN programming at all... I hope they go bankrupt

The new 6 pm Diversity!!! sportscenter is an abomination

Exactly. If you're not some urbanite metrosexual drone who has a Tom Brady jersey hanging next to a Stephen Curry jersey next to a Kris Bryant jersey next to LeBron James jersey next to a Peyton Manning jersey, thinks soccer is great, buys into the notion that Bruce Jenner and Colin Kaepernick are ****ing heroes, roots for Kansas or Kentucky in basketball even though you couldn't find either state on a map, and thinks that Coors Light is the best beer in the world, they do not seek your business.

This is a big part of their problem. ESPN has positioned itself as a network for (a) people who religiously follow the NBA and (b) people who aren't really sports fans, like millennial SJWs

Cable TV is what it is, it's a dying business, but ESPN is doing themselves no favors by pissing off every workaday sports fan out there.

Remember when it was all highlights and stats and it didn't seem like you'd tune in and ever see the same thing twice? When they showed sports besides basketball more than every once-in-a-while?

Yep. Of course, I remember when MTV actually played music, too. :D

They're shitting all over the main group of people who might actually watch their TV shows because they actually still watch TV.

Lotsa truth in that second part... everyone wants the young demographic, but kids are into 1001 other things and barely watch their shows at all no matter how "with the times" they try to be

Its why I hate SNL now, Lorne Michaels the old fool thinks he is staying relevant by going hard left SJW... but twenty-somethings arent watching that ****ing show

I'd think with sports, especially... that bubble will burst eventually.

Same reason NFL viewership is down. The damned agenda-pushing is just ridiculous. Prior to last year, unless it was a playoff game or close to Veteran's Day, they never showed the National Anthem before a game. They did it last year and kept panning the sidelines looking for players who would kneel, hoping to stir controversy. It was obvious and pathetic. I just want to watch the damn game. I'm also sick to death of the hot pink accessories the players are forced to wear for a full month - yeah, I know it's a cancer awareness thing, but I also believe there are people at the top who just think it's funny to make a bunch of alpha males parade around wearing hot pink clothing and shove it down our throats. And then, of course, at the end of the season, the same goddamn teams with the same goddamn goldenboys win the championship year after year after year.

Stop preaching, stop glorifying the assholes who hate America, write a check to the National Cancer Society for all the money you spend on the pink shit, and maybe, just maybe, allow somebody not named Brady, Manning or Roethlisburger to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl for once.

It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with cord-cutting and ala carte TV packages. This is happening to every cable network.

During basketball season they show too much basketball. Huh, weird.

Mainstream America is left.

You know what ESPN shows a lot of? Good teams, and teams with large fanbases. Since both tend to overlap, you tend to get a lot of coverage of those teams. Yeah, it sucks, but did you ever hear them talk about the Warriors before 2014? Have they systematically ignored the Spurs despite them winning five NBA titles?

Did they suddenly start talking about Carolina and Seattle when they were dominant NFC teams? Is there also a marked absence of Seattle Mariners baseball and the Denver Nuggets, despite the other teams in those metros receiving a ton of coverage? Why might that be?

The Steelers were great for years and they got coverage. The Pirates weren't and they didn't. Both exist in the same market. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why. The Packers get a ton of publicity despite being smack in the middle of America while they never talk about the Brewers anymore.

It isn't some conspiracy against flyover country.

Right. That's why Hillary Clinton was elected president.

The even bigger issue is rights fees. The politics don't make a lick of difference, and the loss of the cord cutters definitely hurts... but ESPN charges a ton of money to cable companies.

A big problem is they are paying billions for the rights to broadcast these sports. $2 billion for the NFL, over a billion for the NBA. Nearly a billion for baseball. And that doesn't include half a billion for the College Football Playoff and hundreds of millions with all these individual conferences they broadcast in both football and basketball. They've been shedding talent for a while now. I'm really interested to see what they do when some of these TV contracts expire. Will they stop broadcasting quite as many sports as they do now?

Definitely!

There are so many things out there they could show instead of two douchebag's arguing with each other.


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Bingo.

I was able to cut my cord in late 15' and was able to save up to 50+ dollars a month. Just got a Roku box with Netflix and Hulu and bought a HD OTA antenna for football and live network stuff. Since I don't watch cable that much anymore and just spend more time online, it made sense.

Youtube is coming out with a TV package in the next few weeks and it's going to have all these channels for 35$ a month.

Cable in the traditional sense is a dodo at this point.

https://assets.pcmag.com/media/image...740&height=375

This times 100.

I think everyone knows that the rights fees was a bubble that was eventually going to burst. IMO, it was a desperate move by companies to keep people on cable/satellite roles, b/c if you maintain your subscriber base you can pump up your profits in the short-term.

None of these properties are worth what ESPN, Viacom, etc. paid for them.

Holy shit, that's awesome.

That is awesome. I'll do that. Easily.

It's going to save me 75/ month for something I don't use anyway.


95% of our dish is Nickelodeon and my wife's shitty reality TV.

Yeah, but how will your wife feel about losing that shitty reality TV? You might end up watching more TV than you'd planned if you end up sleeping on the couch. :D

As for me, until Sunday Ticket and MLB Extra Innings are wrested away from DTV, I'm stuck with them.

I admittedly watch a crap load of TV. But a lot of it is same 7 channels, all on that list.

That is a pretty good list of channels. Only big thing that's missing is TBS and TNT. Need those to watch the NCAA tourney.

You and me both. Sucks, but it is what it is. No way I'm going without those and I'm not ****ing streaming them on some game console

Or watch them on the little TV with no sound in the corner of a sports bar while the goddamn Bears are playing on all the big ones. :grr:

Oh hell no. Here, there is one fan base that fills the sports bars because they are all way to cheap to buy the package. I'll give you one hint, the team rhythms with

"Disgusting, criminal, insane, losers for decades, Darth Vader wannabe **** heads"

I guess there are worse things than Bears fans...... :D

Indeed. Lol

That has almost nothing to do with the actual shows though.

That is just you being pissed off because you heard about it somewhere.


Do you not watch networks(abc,nbc,cbs etc) if their owner in a liberal as well?


To each his own.

No AMC, so......FAAAAAIL

I wasn't expecting an answer so thanks.

Sounds a lot like you guys are being snowflakes.

I know racing isn't a sport but ESPN used to have Thursday night thunder with dirt tracks and boat racing. They also had a great Hockey telecast. It was slipping in the decline then the decade long obsession with Tebow was what killed it for me. Linda Cohn is bad ass though! MARRY ME!

ESPN has the same problem as newspapers or CNN, etc. The internet/smartphones completely broke their ability to report the news. As a kid, I would always watch sports center at night and in the morning to get updates but it's 100% unnecessary now.

They still have good shows like outside the lines breaking stories but they've had to fill all the other hours with silly crap shows. Luckily, they had live sports but yeah the subscriber cuts are hurting that now too

I'd think the future would look even worse as they seem to have more competition now with FS1 and the NBC channel

Agree 100%

**** ESPN and their Mickey ****ing Mouse agenda.

It literally never gets turned on in this house.

Nah, just tired of the bullshit.

It's called a CHOICE. ESPN made their choices; now, their former viewing audience is letting them know exactly what they think.

It's all about choices. I'm cool with never watching ESPN again. And I have to believe that they're cool with me not watching.

The fact that they can't afford to lose any more viewers isn't my ****ing problem...

Yep. The cheapest direct tv package is basically the 2nd tier package minus the ESPN channels. You don't even need to be a cord cutter to be a lost subscription now.

Of course, the quality of their programming plays into this. Politics aside, ESPN just isn't very good anymore outside of live sports. It used to be my most watched channel, now I can't stand it.

Yup.
Even MNF blows.

I

True. We would be doing a disservice to the discussion if we didn't mention that ESPN completely ruined Monday Night Football.