ESPN covered the baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team in Havana on Tuesday as a major political event as as well as a sports match. Visuals included frequent cuts between the on-field action and President Obama and President Raúl Castro, who were sitting together at Estadio Latinoamericano.
Disney CEO Bob Iger says Disney needs to improve on the digital front, and that selling ESPN direct-to-consumer is on table. Speaking on Tuesday, Iger said that “rights” were not the issue with selling ESPN directly, but mentioned that price was a sticking point.
After a full day of deliberations, the jury said the stalker who secretly recorded a nude video was responsible for 51% of the blame and the two hotel companies would share the rest, which comes out to nearly $27 million. Andrews, a Fox Sports reporter and co-host of the TV show Dancing with the Stars, wept as jurors announced the verdict.
Exclusives
Sony announced last November plans to offer Disney channels on the service and today it said the PlayStation Vue lineup in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco will expand to include local ABC stations, ESPN and Disney Channel. Customers there will also get a $10 a month price cut.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Sportscaster and TV host Erin Andrews took the witness stand Monday, breaking down repeatedly and telling jurors of the devastation she continues to feel after a […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul filed a lawsuit Wednesday against ESPN and reporter Adam Schefter for posting his medical records last summer. The lawsuit, filed […]
Forget The Hype: ESPN Will Be Fine
Cord-shaving is a bigger problem for the network than cord-cutting. If the network can find a way to reduce that churn, it’s not in any long-term trouble. But it must act quickly.
ESPN is negotiating with streaming services to make its channel available over the Web as it does with Sling TV. “A number of people have expressed interest and we’re in discussions with a large number of people,” John Skipper, the network’s president, said.
TORONTO (AP) — Former All-Star Tracy McGrady is joining ESPN as an analyst and will make regular appearances on its new daily NBA show. McGrady will appear on “The […]
ESPN is joining TV’s morning fray, hoping a new take on offering viewers stats and analysis of games will provide competition in the early hours of the day against Matt Lauer, Norah O’Donnell and Joe Scarborough. The three-hour SportsCenter:AM launches on the Disney-controlled cable network on Feb. 8, the day after the Super Bowl, at 7 a.m. — the earliest ESPN has ever aired an original hour of the program.
Kevin Draper portrays ESPN as “hemorrhaging subscribers and money” as cords are cut and subscribers trade down to ESPN-free packages. “Faced with a declining revenue stream, there are two choices for most businesses: sell more of your product, or charge more for it,” Draper writes, but unfortunately for ESPN, it really isn’t in a position to do either. While the apocalypse isn’t here yet for the sports giant, it’s also caught in market dynamics that see its potential acceleration.
ESPN is becoming a problem for Disney. In a note to clients today, Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar downgraded shares of Disney to “Underweight” from “Equal Weight,” citing increasing investor attention around the struggles at ESPN.
Jessica Mendoza wonders what she’d be doing during the upcoming Major League Baseball season if not for some events out of her control. The retired softball star was scheduled to […]
ESPN may owe upwards of $20M in ad make-goods for ratings shortfalls for the two College Football Playoff semifinal games on New Year’s Eve, according to media buyers.
Despite the record-breaking $517 billion worldwide performance of its new Star Wars movie, the Walt Disney Co. finds itself once again reeling on Wall Street due to the struggles of its suddenly faltering ESPN networks.
Don’t buy ESPN’s PR talk that its 7 million-household dip in subscribers is just a blip. It’s for real, and the end of its empire will have widespread consequences for the way you watch sports and pay for TV.
The Walt Disney Co. has lost 7 million subscribers to its cable networks in the last two years, according to a regulatory filing posted by the company Wednesday. Among the networks posting losses is ESPN, which at 92 million subscribers is down from the 95 million reported in 2013.
Award-Winning ESPN Facility Blazes IP Trail
The sports network’s new Digital Center 2 facility didn’t set out to be a cutting-edge technology standard bearer. The designers of the facility simply were looking for a way move about 40,000 signals in and around the facility. ESPN’s solution was a trio of technologies: IP networking, JPEG 2000 compression and MPEG transport streams.
As the names of the roughly 300 laid-off ESPN employees leaked though the sports industry at the end of last week, many longtime executives reacted with a sense of disbelief. The cuts sent shock waves through the sports and media industries, incredulous that a company seemingly rife with cash would have to lay off so many good people. This was not a case of cutting fat, ESPN insiders say. Many capable executives and talented producers were shown the door last week.
YouTube’s $10-per-month Red service launching Wednesday combines ad-free viewing with unlimited on-demand music. Fans can go to ESPN’s own websites for its videos, the sports network said Friday. Spokeswomen for both ESPN and YouTube on Friday declined to say what legal issues might impede its participation.
The Bristol, Connecticut-based sports channel is one of the linchpins of the traditional cable bundle of hundreds of channels, which is under pressure from viewers migrating online. The job cuts are a “necessary part of our continued strategic evolution to ensure ESPN remains the leader in sports as well as the premier sports destination on any platform,” said ESPN CEO John Skipper in a memo to employees that was posted online.
Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, confronting rising programming costs and a loss of viewers, plans to eliminate as many as 350 positions, about 4.3% of its workforce, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The cuts will be announced to employees as early as Wednesday, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public.
