John Skipper Reveals . . .

I have no idea whether what he said was true, but what on earth are you so upset about? Nowhere does he say that everyone who has cancelled fits on those categories, or labeled everyone who has cancelled as such. It would surprise you to learn that of the people who have downgraded their cable package, they “tend[]” not to sports fans, or “tend[]” to be older and less affluent? That makes perfect sense to me. If anyone read that and said “Wow, fuck you,” I’d have questions about their basic logical reasoning abilities and reading comprehension skills.

(He also, as you know, said this in 2012, so I’m not sure what Get Out up has to do with it; I’d also imagine he’s not in meetings thinking about that since he doesn’t work at ESPN anymore.)

 

The Journal story whines about libruhl bias and implies that it's causing ESPN's woes. It fails, of course, to point that out that from May 2017 to May 2018, sacred cow Fox News Channel lost nearly as many subscribers as ESPN and ESPN2 combined according to Awful Announcing's tracking. In that time span, four networks/channels lost subscribers for every one that gained.

 

I saw a similar criticism on Deadspin, but where does the article say politics has anything to do with ratings decline, other than when expressing concerns of people inside the company (e.g. Linda Cohn)? In fact, the article suggests the causation goes the other way—the industry problems have caused the political issues because of efforts to reach new audiences. It pretty clearly attributes the decline in subscribers to cord cutting more generally.

I don’t disagree with you about ESPN’s problems, I don’t think—but I’m also not sure you’re offering a fair critique of this WSJ story.

What’s more, it actually quotes them talking about ratings being up despite the political issues. And then again goes back to addressing the larger cord cutting problem.

 

Sorry, I mighta just been a little too wound up after reading that. But Skipper's reaction to cord-cutting as described in this story -- saying most of the cutters are old or poor, spinning data to convince investors this is just a fad -- underscores the way of thinking over there that led this company to the shape it's in. Skipper thinks burning $125 million on building new studios, money in hindsight that perhaps should have gone towards developing an OTT platform to get ahead of the curve, was a good business decision probably when they were flush with cash.

Many cord-cutters are millennials who don't have the disposable income to pay $160 a month to watch yapping heads argue about MJ vs LeBron, or young families who need that money to stretch. It's not just "old people or the poors".

 

(1) If you read the interview, he's clearly aware of cord-cutting trends.

(B) The particular quote you're referring to is not about people who cut the cord entirely (or never subscribe to cable in the first place)--he's specifically talking about people who have traded down to "lighter cable packages." I doubt millennials represent a large portion of such individuals, and would be willing to bet that he is correct the people in this bucket do indeed "tend[]" to be people who aren't sports fans, and who are older and less affluent.

(III) In any event, he never says it's only old or poor people.

(iv) In this very same interview, he talks about delivering ESPN content in many different ways, including OTT.

(ɛ) I should correct one erroneous statement in my earlier response (that you were incorrect about, too): he made these comments in 2016, not 2012.

ESPN’s John Skipper Plays Offense on Cord-Cutting

 

If you're a Gen-Xer, like me, you quickly discover once you cut the cord that there's about as much sports content on free TV as there was when you were a kid and fell in love with sports in the first place. And I can get it with a homemade McGuyver antenna that cost me about 10 bucks. It's amazing how easy it is to go from 500 channels to 20 plus a couple of streaming options and be completely satisfied.

 

In what market would that be? In the NYC area, the Yankees and Mets are rarely on free TV. Don't have the exact numbers, but for the Yankees would think at least 70% of the games are
on YES network or ESPN. IIRC the first cable channel to show the Yankees was MSG. In the early 80s the Yankees still had a good amount of games on channel 11, free TV.
The Mets were on channel 9 and think sportschannel was the first cable channel they were on. Had friends who were Mets fans and and didn't have cable in the 80s and they
still watched a decent amount of games on channel 9. For hockey and basketball I don't think the Nets and Knicks are ever on free TV, aside from the times they play a good team
and it's on TBS or ESPN. Can't remember exact numbers, but in the 80s both were on free TV a lot more than they are now.

 

I understand all that. But you also shouldn't be insulting your customers like that either. That's like if you send back a steak at a restaurant because it's over or under-cooked, and the manager comes out and instead of offering to comp you just says "Whatever, you're probably a vegan anyways".

 

I wonder if it had been a black or hispanic CEO who had been found to have been a cocaine addict, whether he would have found such a soft landing as Mr. Skipper did in whatever bullshit entity he's working with now?

 

Your head will explode if he turns up at The Athletic.