Chaos at Disney (Battle of the Bobs)

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I had cable for decades, but when I got married I was happy to dump it -- most of the stuff I liked kept getting canned, and why am I paying for 12 ESPNs when I don't even watch one of them? Plus, it cut my cable bill in half, and the streaming costs were far lower.

Apparently the biggest costs in most cable bills are ESPN and Fox News, both of which have must-carry clauses in their contracts with cable providers. (And it's why people wanting to boycott Fox News advertisers don't have much of an impact: Ad revenue is a tiny portion of their revenue.)

If you don't watch either of those, cable is wildly overpriced.

If cable companies switched those to channels users had to pay for a la carte, there'd be mass layoffs at both companies.

I think the property owners are taking big risks thinking they own enough content to go it their own way.

The irony is that HBO and Disney, which have the strongest catalogs, are so busy shooting themselves in the foot that they might help the Peacocks and Paramount+ survive longer than they logically should. (Hulu is likely to be part of Disney+ by the end of 2024, so it'll both survive and die, complicating things.)

 

[RealAlHazred]

Apparently the biggest costs in most cable bills are ESPN and Fox News, both of which have must-carry clauses in their contracts with cable providers.

I'm not surprised that's one of the biggest cost-sources. I no longer remember all the specifics, but there was ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Goal Line... When I saw Dodgeball, I missed that "ESPN8, el Ocho" was a joke -- it seemed perfectly plausible that there was such a channel that I just missed paging through what seemed like an endless sea of sports channels.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'm not surprised that's one of the biggest cost-sources. I no longer remember all the specifics, but there was ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Goal Line...

All of those extra channels really don't matter .... I don't mean to be dismissive ... I'm sure they matter at the margins if you are a fan of something specific that is carried on them ...

But the reason that ESPN can still demand the high carriage fees (what they charge cable companies per subscriber per month) because they carry live sports. Live sports are one of the few areas that people still watch on "broadcast," and still demands high rights fees.

When I saw Dodgeball, I missed that "ESPN8, el Ocho" was a joke -- it seemed perfectly plausible that there was such a channel that I just missed paging through what seemed like an endless sea of sports channels.

Two things- first, that joke spawned an actual "ESPN The Ocho" programming event on ESPN. It shows Corgi races and the like.

How to watch ESPN 8: The Ocho, 2022 edition

ESPN8: The Ocho is taking over ESPN2 on Aug. 5, featuring 24 hours of seldom-seen sports. Here are the details.

www.espn.com

Second ....

 

[payn]

I'm not surprised that's one of the biggest cost-sources. I no longer remember all the specifics, but there was ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Goal Line... When I saw Dodgeball, I missed that "ESPN8, el Ocho" was a joke -- it seemed perfectly plausible that there was such a channel that I just missed paging through what seemed like an endless sea of sports channels.

I was floored when Cornhole tourneys were on ESPN...

 

[RealAlHazred]

I was floored when Cornhole tourneys were on ESPN...

I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS PAYING FOR THIS CRAP! FOR YEARS!!!

No disrespect meant to those who are ardent cornhole fanatics, but you can see how me, someone completely without a sportsball fandom, would object to being required to pay for all the sportsball.

 

[payn]

I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS PAYING FOR THIS CRAP! FOR YEARS!!!

No disrespect meant to those who are ardent cornhole fanatics, but you can see how me, someone completely without a sportsball fandom, would object to being required to pay for all the sportsball.

I get what you are saying, but I also really like the fact that other things can get their shining moments instead of the big 4.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I was floored when Cornhole tourneys were on ESPN...

I'm still floored that "cornhole" somehow got popular over the sound of all the snickering.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I get what you are saying, but I also really like the fact that other things can get their shining moments instead of the big 4.

Meanwhile, I, a sci-fi fan, received exactly one sci-fi channel, and it was barely that...

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'm still floored that "cornhole" somehow got popular over the sound of all the snickering.

I know who is the ringer on my team ...

 

[Mallus]

Cornhole and drone racing on ESPN make me laugh... right up until I remember my favorite program on ESPN used to be "Cocktail Dress Ladies Billiards", which I swear was a real enough thing.