re: Whitlock: How a Gawker-Affiliated Website Made ESPN Politically Correct

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Their gross ratings are down in large part because the quality of their product is diminished.

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This is used to justify why every cable channel's ratings are down. This is used to explain why the Kardashians ratings are down 50 percent from their 2010 peak. This is used by fans of the Challenge who are angry their favorite old school Challengers are not invited back to the show. And it's used by mostly conservative posters on Tigerdroppings to explain why ESPN's ratings are down on non-live sports shows.

Now, I have not followed the ratings trajectory of ESPN's non sports programming, but I will just go with the assumption that it is down for the sake of the argument.

The reality is that ratings are down on everything, especially on cable. There is much more competition so everyone is getting a smaller slice of the pie.

In addition, ESPN shows maybe 4-5 hours of live sports each weekday, except during special occasions like the World Cup, the Masters, etc. The rest of their 19-20 hours a day can be easily replaced.

Posters reflect fondly on their viewing experience of 90s SportsCenter. A highlights show won't work nearly as well these days since people get highlights from social media, online aggregaters, their own team's app, etc.

The ratings are down due to competition for eyeballs at all hours, as can be seen by the decline in cable shows for all kings of networks, along with the highlight show model becoming obsolete due to technology.