John Malone: ESPN Could Cost $20/Month If Offered Alone

If cable doesn't embrace ala carte, they will go the way of the railroads. Kids don't want sports or news.

Or they could raise the change of service fee from $1.99 to 5.99 for changing the channels in a package.

Or make it so you can order on the computer or website but have to call customer service to remove channels.

Anyways, the cable/satellite provider's hands are pretty much tied by the programming providers.

I agree in general, except for this. You don't pay for these channels. The shopping/infomercial channels pay to be on the cable system and contribute (I'm sure very slightly) to REDUCING your monthly bill.

It just means that ESPN is overpriced and needs to lower what it charges cable operators.

Undoubtably, they could do that.
But, most people, are more likely, to agree with a human that they don't JUST want that single channel, and If they want they can have that channel PLUS these other channels for "just $3 more a month for the next 3 months" hoping you enjoy and grow accustomed to having at least one of them.
Never missing the chance of an upsell.

Face it they will continue to bundle or not whatever it takes to earn MORE money, never less.

Don't offer it alone, rather, bundle it with the other sports channels, only.

What about TNT, TWC, etc. for Lakers games?

Yeah ... this is pretty much how it happens on DirecTV with the Starz, HBO, Cinemax premium services, you go on their website, choose a premium service to add and it's up and running by the time you tune to it in your TV ... if they can do it for them, they can do it for ALL channels.

I'm fed up with subsidizing all the sports jocks and paying for channels I NEVER watch.

Fuck ESPN ... and Disney too.

...and that really wouldn't take much effort to build, either.

Bring it on! If only the people who want ESPN are forced to pay for it, then it will become apparent how overpriced the service is. But why is it so overpriced? Because they have to pay those insane fees to the sports leagues, which then pay the teams, which pay the millionaire athletes and billionaire owners.

And once the sports fans are forced to shoulder the full cost of what they're watching, the whole damn pyramid will collapse. ESPN will be caught in a death spiral of having to increase fees to make up for a shrinking pool of subscribers. The more they raise rates, the fewer people will subscribe. At that point, their only option will be to renegotiate their contracts with the various leagues, which will then have to cut payments to teams, which will then have to cut salaries to athletes and profits to owners. It will be utter financial carnage, and I look forward to seeing it happen.

Don't get me wrong, I harbor no ill will toward sports fans. It's just that I think they're being ripped off, and I resent having to be ripped off along with them.

And so they ESPN must pay less to the teams and leagues, and the teams must pay less to the athletes, and the athletes are worth less to advertisers so Nike sells less shoes.
All good ideas but it will take quite a while to echo through the system other then a total collapse of the SPORTS INC. system, with an awful lot of people/money opposing it.

CATV fees are a small part of the big picture.

What's missing in this discussion is why ESPN is so expensive in the first place? Where is all this money going?

When was the last time ESPN had games on it like it used to.

Why pay to hear some commentators give you their opinion when you get get scores and games on other channels or get the sports package, even check the web to get the latest stats and game progress.

ESPN= Overpriced and could do without on my bill.-Period!

The ESPN channels, and the Food Network, and Home and Garden, and Bravo, and MTV and VH1, since they don't show music videos anymore for the last 20 years. I literally NEVER watch any of that crap, but I HAVE to have it to get my Comedy Central, my FX, my AMC etc., AKA channels that are actually worth watching. Sure would be nice to save some coin.

ESPN is a cash machine. They make over $5.00 per subscriber.
With FOX Sports launching their own network soon, guess who is footin the bill?

Yeah it's called SelectHD from Verizon. He's probably right.
I would have done just broadcast, but believe it or not the 2-play was 10 less for SelectHD, so I got it.

My bill went from $105 to $79 (inc CC) when I went from Extreme to SelectHD and that INCLUDES 50/25 unlimited. And no regional sports fee. So savings over $35 each month. If they were smart they would have PPV sports like boxing, etc. But they are happy with the status quo today.

Cost to provision is not a problem the problem is that we still have channels. If you go a la carte, go a la carte. You pay for what you consume. Think of how the cell guys charge. Base fee + you pay for consumption. Works well there. Yes some people will pay more, some will pay less but the point is it's a personal decision, and if content providers (which should want it all out there) want to condition us to ration, then they will lose.

My take is that these guys need to stop signing billion dollar contracts otherwise yes, ESPN will cost $20.

its Disney owned. what you expect

Sounds silly. Would i have to turn off the TV to use the bathroom? If I turn off the TV during a commercial will my bill increase?

Calm down internet. You have the option of not paying for any tv.

Have you seen the size of media rights contracts college athletics conferences and professional leagues are getting?

true they all try to increase the ARPU. However given that we watch 5-7 channel I doubt i'd be paying $137 per month.

I see them offering channels in tiers, ie Sports package, Family package, Movie package etc

EXACTLY why should we make it cheaper for the jocks when we don't want it.

How much do you think the NFL, NBA, NCAA, MLB, NHL, and the rest of the sports associations charge networks for broadcasting rights?

Or make sportscasts Pay Per View only so I'm not paying for sports I don't watch. The big sports leagues charge a lot of money for broadcast rights and if they go PPV only, then our pay TV bills would be a lot lower.

No. Economics of scale. Currently it's $4-$5 per subscriber for ESPN. If only 25% of current subscribers choose ESPN as a subscription, then theoretically the price would be $16-$20/month for ESPN to get the same revenue.

On that note, we're done talking here!

Products are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. If a la cart plans push the price up to $20/month, people WILL start thinking about the cost and decide whether it is worth it or not. It's possible even that this mode would knock the Disney Corp off of their pedestal and bring prices into an acceptable range.

There wouldn't be many people willing to pay that much for all of the ESPN channels.

I'm curious how this would trickle down to player's salaries. How much of a team's revenue comes from TV contracts? Players get paid WAY too much anyway.

True.
But they better slap a flat cost on that.
How pissed would people be if you only save $5 to drop it but it costs $20 to add it.

because ESPN won't be able to just offer $xxxx million dollars for exclusive rights and then raise rates.