ESPN pay cuts?

Ha, I was just going to say, the running joke on Comedy Bang Bang and some other humor podcasts is that "Serial invented podcasting, you know."

 

There's before Serial and after Serial.

Interesting how one thing captures a huge audience in the cultural moment - when a thousand other things of the same kind did not.

 

I haven't watched ATH in a few years but it was always miles better than PTI.

Kaitlin Collins is better than PTI's high water mark.

 

ESPN to streaming exclusively? I hadn't heard that until Bob Iger's quarterly report for Disney shareholders today.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

"The decline in income is due almost exclusively to continued challenges in the linear TV business. Linear networks revenue fell by 7 percent year over year to $6.6 billion, with operating income in the division falling by 35 percent to $1.8 billion.

"Higher sports rights and production costs at ESPN, combined with lower affiliate and advertising revenue, were to blame at cable, while ABC and the ABC stations had lower advertising revenue, continuing a trend that is visible across the market.

"Iger said that the company’s plans regarding ESPN have not changed, and that the company will move ESPN to streaming when the timing is right and the pricing has been figured out. He added that “all of these things are connected,” from ESPN to the cable bundle to streaming profitability, and certain things need to be worked out before the company moves forward."

 

Cable to streaming is the video equivalent of print to digital. Advertisers crave passive eyeballs - not only the eyeballs that actively seek them out.

 

The sports-watching experience on streaming services sucks, especially if you’re one of those folks who like to flip between five games at once (like bettors). They’ll have to pry the cable box from my cold, dead hands.

 

It really does suck. We have YouTube and others, and trying to get from one game to another sucks. I'm sure there's a way to easily do it but I haven't figured it out yet.

 

You’re literally the only person I’ve ever seen make this take, that ATH > PTI. That’s fine and all but I had to do a double take.

 

No. Just no.

While I agree that PTI has been mailing it in, part of what makes PTI miles better is that, unlike ATH, it doesn't try to manufacture arguments and contrarian views. If Wilbon and Kornheiser agree, they'll tell you. Not only does it work better given some other programming's excessive wont to pit talking heads against one another, but it also makes it more believable when Wilbon and Kornheiser disagree. They agree on some issues and disagree on others, but at least they don't have some idiot behind the scenes telling them what stances to take strictly for the sake of programming.

We have enough angertainment outside the sports realm. We don't need more of it inside the bubble.

 

As I stated, I haven't really watched it the last 5-6 years.

But 10-12 years ago when I did watch ATH on a semi-regular basis, it was infinitely more interesting and ran circles around PTI.

They were also different shows.

 

How does streaming make sense? It's another thing you have to buy and it's a bother to move between your cable service and a streaming service.

ESPN gets paid by everyone who have basic cable.