quote:
The vast majority of their struggles have nothing to do with the fact that what should be their target audience don't want to watch the content they are showing?

Yes, that is correct.

The majority of their lost subscribers never watched ESPN to begin with, so yes.

quote:
Interesting take, maybe Mike and Jemelle can get you on SC6 to share it.

And you'd probably watch it, still

This post was edited on 4/27/17 at 11:30 am

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Posted by CocomoLSU

Inside your dome.

Member since Feb 2004

154064 posts

Posted on 4/27/17 at 11:39 am to shel311

quote:
Just throwing this out, but doesn't most cable plans with ESPN include ESPN News? I have no clue, I just know I've always had both.

It may. I am honestly not even sure what channel ESPNN is on my cable box. Is that just highlights and news though? If so, maybe I am watching the wrong channel. Which kinda goes into what someone said earlier as well, in that maybe ESPN has too many channels/sources and needs to reign it in a bit. But my point was that I do still watch SC at 5, just not the Michael and Jemele one; I have no interest in that. And to be honest, it's mostly due to Jemele Hill. I actually like Michael Smith, even though he isn't the same personality he used to be on the network.

To your point about youtube and gifs and highlights from a number of alternative sources other than "the 5:00 SC," surely there is still a market for that though. I know a lot of people of my ilk would be interested in that. A lot of MSB posters seem to be, and I imagine that there is still a pretty large number of people in the country who would tune into that.

I am not saying they need to run the same SportsCenter every hour all day long, but at some point it would be nice to be able to just tune in and see sports highlights and news and not be inundated with "analysis" (used VERY loosely) and other things that aren't really sports-centric.

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Posted by shel311

McKinney, Texas

Member since Aug 2004

112445 posts

Posted on 4/27/17 at 11:46 am to CocomoLSU

quote:
Is that just highlights and news though? If so, maybe I am watching the wrong channel.

Yes, 30 minutes, over and over again, they do quick recaps of all sports only.

Every once in a while they'll show a game on ESPN News which is annoying if you want news, but for those looking for that highlight fix via TV, that's a great option. I used to watch it religiously before all the streaming of highlights was made much simpler via my phone, but it's a great option.

quote:
To your point about youtube and gifs and highlights from a number of alternative sources other than "the 5:00 SC," surely there is still a market for that though.

I'm certain there is, but I imagine the reason ESPN made that huge change was because of declining ratings to the original SC6 show.

............

Looking at this, it looks like everything i said above about ESPN News...take it back, they don't rerun the news in 30 minute increments like they used to...nevermind.

LINK

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Posted by RandySavage

Member since May 2012

33639 posts

Posted on 4/27/17 at 12:22 pm to shel311

quote:
And you'd probably watch it, still

Ha, maybe but the next minute of SC6 I watch will be the first. Maybe having a fellow MSBer on is what it would take.

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Posted by CocomoLSU

Inside your dome.

Member since Feb 2004

154064 posts

Posted on 4/27/17 at 12:32 pm to shel311

quote:
Looking at this, it looks like everything i said above about ESPN News...take it back, they don't rerun the news in 30 minute increments like they used to...nevermind.

Nice. So they just use that channel to replay talking head shows they've already aired. Good job, ESPN.

quote:
I'm certain there is, but I imagine the reason ESPN made that huge change was because of declining ratings to the original SC6 show.

Well once you said "without looking it up" and assumed the ratings were down, I did a quick google search and it seems like viewership for SC6 since Michael and Jemele took over is down, but still okay. But that was an article that came out not long after they started.

And I did find this article from yesterday that talks about how ESPN's ratings for SC were declining and they made the decision to rebrand the SC shows individually, which is why you see the SC6 crap, and SC AM in the mornings, as well as SVP's show.

quote:
In the year since that podcast, it would seem ESPN finally got the memo. "SportsCenter" is no longer a success, and that may be threatening its dominance to a small degree, at least outside of live sports.

As a result, in some respects, ESPN has been quietly rebranding most of its "SportsCenter" shows. Rather than have one entity that airs all day, it now has a family of "SportsCenter"s, each with a personality and spin.

Maybe more importantly, "SportsCenter" is no longer just a highlights show. It is now something more akin to a talk show. Highlights have become an afterthought in many cases, and several of the shows even have new names.

And that speaks to what I am kinda talking about. Where I can no longer just "tune into SportsCenter" and catch news and highlights. It's now taken on its own identities for different shows in different timeslots, and instead of news and highlights, it's a huge mixture of lots of things. This was super clear when they switched to the SC AM bullshite a while back. They had whole segments (with that Serena Morales chick) of the show where it was basically some social media thing, or some trending video or whatever.

And don't get me wrong, I do think ESPN pushes a certain type of politics, and I do think that can and will only hurt the brand, but obviously that's not "the reason" things are bleak over there lately. it's just not going to help anything when they move away from sports and push certain agendas on the vast majority of their shows (along with firing people who speak the other side). It's one reason that instead of good, solid analysis they've moved more into talking heads being controversial and yelling at each other to drive ratings. I mean, it's clearly worked for people like Stephen A. Smith, Jemele Hill, Skip, etc.

But the problem is that the self-proclaimed "worldwide leader in sports" is going away from being just that. And they (and Disney) are insane if they think that isn't gonna hurt the brand in the long run IMO.

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