$9.42

[Jolly]

An excerpt from a WSJ article:

The sports-media giant took its first step into streaming in 2018 with the launch of ESPN+, a monthly streaming service whose live programming includes golf events, certain Major League Baseball and professional hockey games, as well as a variety of scripted and unscripted programming. It has 25.3 million subscribers.

But ESPN+ doesn’t offer access to the ESPN channel itself, including high-value programming like National Basketball Association and National Football League telecasts that are only available on TV. Project “Flagship” is about helping ESPN transition the full channel to streaming.

Every big media company is carrying out a tricky shift from the traditional TV business, which has been very lucrative, to a streaming world where the economics are more uncertain. Consumers for decades have paid for large bundles of channels under long-term, hard-to-cancel cable contracts.

That system means that many consumers who don’t watch ESPN are paying for it in their packages. ESPN gets a $9.42 slice of the average cable TV bill—it collects fees from cable providers for each customer—compared with an average of 49 cents per subscriber for other U.S. cable networks, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Streaming is a different world. People only pay for the subscriptions they want. It is likely that the number of households who would sign up for an ESPN streaming service would be smaller than the number who have the ESPN channel in their cable TV packages. That could impact how ESPN prices its streaming service. MSG’s new streaming service, which offers New York Knicks and Buffalo Sabres games, is priced at $30 a month.

[Jolly]

The above is interesting. Consumers are starting to rebel against high streaming fees.

Wonder what will happen?

[Mik]

I think the bundling will still reign supreme. The streaming channels model is still quite slow and clunky in terms of finding what you want to watch.

[Jolly]

ESPN charges a lot because A) eyeballs on the product, and B) the cost of acquiring their content. It's not cheap to carry the NBA, NHL, MLB and a Monday night NFL game.

But unless something has changed, I think they are still losing money.

[Jolly]

Prediction: Streaming with commercials.

[Mik]

We're already getting that. Amazon, Paramount and other streaming services have that for a lower price.

[George K]

@Mik said in $9.42:

The streaming channels model is still quite slow and clunky in terms of finding what you want to watch.

Probably the most "cable-like" streaming service is DirecTV. However, it's quite pricey when you add multiple TVs, etc. Probably about $150 a month.

The runner-up (in terms of interface) is YouTubeTV. Not as many channels as DirecTV, but a lot cheaper - $80 a month. Its interface is quite nice - you can see a guide of what's on, and then you can delete channels you're not interested and pin often-watched channels to the top of the guide. Some of the channels Mrs. George likes are not available, so we're sticking with CrapCast for now.

[Jolly]

So...Is the predicted death of broadcast (antenna) tv premature? If we're gonna have to watch commercials to get content, why not get the content for free?

The only caveat I would add, is that the FCC needs to place a limit on broadcast commercials. I think 3 minutes every 30 minutes is sufficient for primetime. That's a bit less than today, but about the same as in year's past.

And...Back to the future...Companies could sponsor a show, as in the Colgate Comedy Hour or such. Not any more commercials, but they get advertising in the name and product placement in the show...

[Mik]

Same here with Fioptics. The nice thing about that is the boxes for each tv are wifi enabled. No cables to carry the signal, but of course you have to HDMI to the tv. We're paying $127 all in with the tv feed and 300MB internet. Very reliable and about $80 cheaper than Spectrum.

[Jolly]

I'm in BFE, which is primitive in bandwidth. I do four things:

1. Broadcast antenna with booster. I get all 4 major networks, the three PBS broadcast channels, CW, and a plethora of things like Ion, Laff, Movies!, H&I, etc.

2. DISH satellite. Biggest expense. Runs $90 total.

3. Amazon Prime.

4. Anything free on Roku, such as FreeVee (the old IMDB that Amazon bought), Crackle, Newsmax, etc.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Jolly said in $9.42:

The above is interesting. Consumers are starting to rebel against high streaming fees.

Wonder what will happen?

The writers for the shows on those streaming networks ain't happy, either.

[Jolly]

What should a writer be paid and what should a streaming show cost?

Couple of opposites...

1. Hallmark movies. Often made for just over $1M, total.
2. The Expanse series. $2-$5M per episode.