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Started By
Message
re: Whitlock: How a Gawker-Affiliated Website Made ESPN Politically Correct
Posted on 5/9/17 at 8:03 am to Keys Open Doors
Posted on 5/9/17 at 8:03 am to Keys Open Doors
quote:
Here is why the "ESPN is so liberal and that's why their ratings are down" makes no sense. It's not as if you can just call up Cox, Time Warner, etc and say that you want to cancel ESPN and keep all your other cable channels.
That is not the argument.
Their gross ratings are down in large part because the quality of their product is diminished. Much of this is culture/politics, in that they have chosen to alienate a large contingency of their base, either directly or indirectly.
Moreover, as I mentioned earlier, ESPN was once thought of as cord-cutting-proof. It is perfectly logical to suggest that this was a last reason for many people to keep cable, since it used to represent, on a per-channel basis, double the price of the next channel. Thus, the marginal effect of this SJW phenomenon, while subtle on the surface, can certainly have an outsized incremental impact.
As I have pointed out from beginning of this thread, it's a complicated issue. Don't really care to entertain your lazy, redneck kicking a dog imagery, since that is pretty simplistic. But throughout this decline for ESPN, many posters on here have dismissed the impact the agenda has had on the network. I don't care if it's Whitlock saying it. Do you think Linda Cohn is also a self-serving clown?
This post was edited on 5/9/17 at 8:10 am
2
Posted on 5/9/17 at 9:03 am to Lou Pai
quote:
ESPN was once thought of as cord-cutting-proof. It is perfectly logical to suggest that this was a last reason for many people to keep cable, since it used to represent, on a per-channel basis, double the price of the next channel. Thus, the marginal effect of this SJW phenomenon, while subtle on the surface, can certainly have an outsized incremental impact.
ESPN was thought to "cord cutting proof" because of live sports, not because of their other programming. Live are harder to "steal" and it's not something you can typically watch "later" like other shows.
For those of you hung up on the ratings, there are 2 separate issues. The shows and other non live sporting event programming and the games. The games themselves do not have much, if any, political content and the games are the ratings that matter. I seriously doubt that the hard core Trump supporting SEC fans cut cable and quit watching SEC games because they are on ESPN because they gave an ESPY to Catlin Jenner. Their overall ratings for non live sports may be down and maybe that's due to the decision to go hard left politics but that has minimal effect on the bottom line. Ratings for the NFL were overall down last year, not just on ESPN. I know the CFB Playoff took a dive from 14 to 15 but was that because ESPN was too left or because the games were on NYE instead of Jan 1? The ratings for the NCG this year were down from last year. Was that because of SJWs in ESPN or because it was a rematch of 2 teams from the South and the rest of the country didn't care?
By far the biggest problem from ESPNs model is that the owe billions for broadcast live sports and their biggest source of revenue is cable fees (not advertising) and more and more people are cutting cable. If their ratings were down while other networks weren't there might be some credibility to the argument that their politics are killing them, but since ratings were down on other networks as well.
Posted on 5/9/17 at 9:07 am to Lou Pai
quote:
Their gross ratings are down in large part because the quality of their product is diminished.
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.
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