ESPN has been hemorrhaging subscribers. In two months in last year alone, they lost over a million subscribers. They lost 621,000 in October, another 555,000 in November. The bleeding continues and they keep pretending it doesn’t matter.
All of ESPN is losing viewers. ESPN2, according to Nielsen’s estimates, lost 595,000 subscribers, and ESPNU ― its college sports-focused channel ― lost more than 700,000.
It admitted to losing 7 million subscribers between 2011 and 2015, Huff Po reported.
Every single day this year ESPN has lost roughly 10,000 cable and satellite subscribers.
-
The Importance of Prayer: How a Christian Gold Company Stands Out by Defending Americans’ Retirement
ESPN has turned to bloviating on left-wing political propaganda along with sports, but they are adamant that their leftist views have nothing to do with the losses.
Poynter Institute, the journalists’ premier news source, has blasted Fox News and Breitbart for saying ESPN’s leftist views have something to do with it. ESPN, they say, was just basically cleaning out the dead wood with the last mass firings.
As far as Poynter is concerned, it was just a normal event. The Wednesday purge of 100 TV, radio and Internet personalities included some top people.
What’s their excuse for the loss of subscribers?
Most sports fans are conservative, half the nation is conservative or leans right, yet they want us to believe their rants against gun ownership don’t have a thing to do with it.
There are polls that indicate they are shedding Republicans.
In 2015, the ESPN audience skewed Republican across all time segments, known as dayparts, ranging from 12 percent more Republican in the Early News, Late Fringe and Overnight dayparts, to 21 percent more Republican than Democratic in the early morning time segment, Daily Caller reported.
The balance shifted dramatically in 2016, with the viewership in every daypart becoming less conservative. The Daytime segment was only 2 percent more Republican than Democratic, a drop of 16 percentage points from 2015. Late Fringe and Overnight viewership swung to a 12 percent advantage for Democrats, 22 and 28 point shift, respectively.
As Fox’s Clay Travis said on Sports Outkick, “Middle America wants to pop a beer and listen to sports talk, they don’t want to be lectured about why Caitlyn Jenner is a hero, Michael Sam is the new Jackie Robinson of sports, and Colin Kaepernick is the Rosa Parks of football.”
ESPN published a poem this week paying homage to convicted cop killer and communist Assata Shakur aka Joanne Chesimard who was given sanctuary in Cuba. She remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for domestic terrorism. The Black Panther killer was convicted of murdering a state trooper but is suspected in other murders, robberies, and bombings.
ESPN has since taken the poem down. It was an editorial mistake, they said.
Yes, it was.
A poem by DaMaris Hill, “Revolution” had led the April 25 ESPNW.com feature “Five Poets on the New Feminism,” which was produced “in honor of National Poetry month…to reflect on resistance, redefining feminism and movement,” according to a site description. But Hill’s poem opened with the dedication “(for Assata Shakur),” honoring the one-time Black Liberation Army member who has been hiding out in Cuba to avoid finishing a prison term for her murder rap.
The harsh criticism aimed at ESPN might have had something to do with the poem disappearing and their realization that this was an editorial mistake as they acknowledged.
Just remember, if they lose any more subscribers, it has nothing to do with their left-wing views.
wpDiscuz
