Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Don’t Cry for Me, Caitlyn Jenner: ESPN and Media Comeuppance
ESPN has announced a massive round of layoffs today – over 100 people, many of them on-air talent – as the most expensive channel on cable television struggles to balance the books amid exploding sports licensing fees and plummeting cable subscriber numbers. But Outkick the Coverage (via National Review) notes that ESPN’s pronounced Leftward political lean may have played a large part in its current problems, too:
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 made the mistake of trying to make liberal social media losers happy and as a result lost millions of viewers.
Of course, the Lefty commenters on Deadspin.com – a site that has its own ESPN-like Leftward tilt – see things very differently:
- I’ve been assured by online conservatives that ESPN’s declining viewership is not because of cord-cutting, but solely because of the sports network pushing a “far left agenda” and its positive coverage of uppity blacks acting all black all the time, and something to do with the gays too.
- I’ve seen some of them (such as the National Review) make some variation this argument: “Granted, these layoffs were going to happen no matter what and they’re almost entirely due to structural flaws in the industry, but they’re politics made it happen faster.” The problem with that argument is that when it comes to proving the second half of the statement, they rely on nothing but a bunch of anecdotal “I know some people who cut cable because they don’t like their politics” bull*** and appeals to “common sense.”
- Ridiculous conservatives do, apparently. The most precious special snowflakes in the world, that crowd, seeing liberal agendas in their freaking sports.
- Online conservatives also agree that HBO is next on the chopping block, since most of their sports reporting is done by thugs like Bryant Gumbel.
- Don’t you know that everything is left wing now? Media, sports, science, even a lot of republicans are considered leftist now
One has clearly stepped into a parallel universe when Conservatives are being called “precious special snowflakes” by their Lefty opponents.
The Caitlin Flanagan article from The Atlantic mentioned in the most recent GLoP podcast, “How Late-Night Comedy Fueled the Rise of Trump,” strikes me as particularly germane to the ESPN situation. I keep returning to this particular section of her piece:
Though aimed at blue-state sophisticates, these shows are an unintended but powerful form of propaganda for conservatives. When Republicans see these harsh jokes — which echo down through the morning news shows and the chattering day’s worth of viral clips, along with those of Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers — they don’t just see a handful of comics mocking them. They see HBO, Comedy Central, TBS, ABC, CBS, and NBC. In other words, they see exactly what Donald Trump has taught them: that the entire media landscape loathes them, their values, their family, and their religion. It is hardly a reach for them to further imagine that the legitimate news shows on these channels are run by similarly partisan players—nor is it at all illogical.
I can state from long-time, in-depth personal experience in the entertainment and media industry that this is dead-on, bulls-eye accurate.
And I can also state that, from my experience, the people in power likely will not learn that they need to change, that they need to stop bloviating about their personal beliefs to the rest of the nation and the world through the media they produce and distribute – no matter how much money they lose. No, it’s the public who is wrong, and it’s the public who must change. So expect more Left-wing bias – and more network layoffs.
Published in General
Over Easter, the discussion was why baseball wasn’t being aired on local channels – well, because it was bought up by the sports networks, so you have to pay for it if you want to see our country’s baseball season – if that isn’t un-American, I don’t know what is. Throw in sports networks and teams boycotting states that refused the multi-gender bathroom ordinance by Obama, and very outrageously paid sports figures “taking a knee” during the National Anthem……screw ’em all.
Kaitlyn is stunning and brave, a beautiful butterfly struggling against a ill gust of transphophic flatus. Stay strong Kaitlyn, the haters gonna hate hate hate, shake it off.
OK, that’s over. Hahahahaha to ESPN, bunch o pansy butt anti-gun moral preening losers. They will continue to fail and never quite figure out why.
I do not watch ESPN but since it has become so political it comes up in many news feeds I do monitor which did lead to some speculation I found interesting. Far fetched speculation perhaps but interesting:
First speculation about ESPN, this one is pretty wild, the hard left turn is actually in order for it to serve as a platform to aid CEO Bob Iger in a run for the Presidency in 2020.
Second speculation regarding ESPN, the decline is all about cord-cutting and this is a radical shift in business strategy away from pure sports into one with a smaller but more committed customer base willing to accept increased fees.
No particular opinion one way or the other, however do find the speculation intriguing.
I’d like to think that there’s a significant political aspect to ESPN’s financials, but we have to recognize that it’s speculative. The leftward tilt is more or less coextensive with an important cultural trend–cord cutting–which hurts ESPN badly. I’m guessing the latter is a larger factor, perhaps by a lot. Still, it’s good either way.
When morons who hate conservatives are tripping themselves & each other, maybe the best thing to do is to simply observe with silent satisfaction. Teaching them to hide it is an undeserved gift.
I would be interested in seeing what research ESPN has to support their strategy that injecting political advocacy into their sports programming – especially Leftist political advocacy – will maintain their viewership base in the era of cord-cutting. It may just be anecdotal evidence, but the cord-cutters I know tend to be more politically Left-leaning, while more Conservative people tend to maintain a traditional cable set-up. And yes, many Lefties feel like they their television should cost the same as their college and health care: nothing. I’ve had this conversation myriad times, and the concept of entertainment economics just doesn’t ever enter most people’s minds. It’s as if the cast and crew of Game of Thrones just get together and make that show on the weekends for fun in someone’s backyard with old junk from the Goodwill – how dare they expect money for that?! After seeing how readily the Lefties in L.A. share passwords for subscription sites, pass around awards screeners, and generally do whatever they can to help each other not pay to be entertained, why on earth would they think their fellow travelers are the best audience in which to invest?
I’m not so certain that’s something that could be taught. It’s too important a part of their worldview.
I have debated cutting the cord. It’s complicated, since they structure the bundle deals to raise one part when you drop another and since I work from home I need good Internet. I checked out of ESPN a long time ago, even though I am technically still paying for it as part of my cable TV package. My two favorite teams are the Redskins and the Indians so I am sick of being labeled a racist. Then there are the endless gun-control halftime speeches. I would tune in ESPN if it was the only way to see my team, but the sound has been muted for at least a decade.
Iger 2020: Let him do to the country what he did to ESPN.
Meanwhile on ESPN:
Yeah . . . it’s not you, ESPN, it’s me.
I did that last summer too, except I had the game on the radio with the TV sound turned down. The radio and the TV weren’t in sync, but since the ESPN idiots never talk about the game they are covering, it was still better than leaving them on to natter away.
Because they think their audience is stupid (lefty of otherwise) or honest and plays by the rules (righty and/or conservative). Their business plan apparently is a plan for going out of business.
The current mantra of placing self-examination above all facts to the contrary is antithetical to commerce, when self-examination puts oneself at the center of the universe. More conducive to commerce is an understanding of all things in their nature and natural hierarchy. Everything in the universe exists in a hierarchy, with things below, man in the middle and God at the top of the hierarchy. A news show is lower than man because it serves the man by providing information. It doesn’t exist so that man can watch it for no purpose. Those writers and ‘journalists’ who expect people to watch their programs must provide something of value for the time that it takes to view them. And that value is determined by the viewer, not by the provider. The world of news sports entertainment does not revolve around ESPN.
Frankly, the entire spectrum of leftist Disney / ABC / ESPN political views do not even register for me. Such is the advantage of watching everything on recorded DVR. I fast forward through the commercials and the nonsense.
The sport I mostly watch on TV is NBA basketball, and I have had the enormous blessing (having lived in Los Angeles throughout my adult life) of hearing the games called by two of the great announcers of all time – Chick Hearn and Ralph Lawler (and, yeah, if you count baseball, Vin Scully too, even though baseball has become pretty boring).
Although the politics have been self-edited out of my sports consciousness, the horrendous ignorance of the Disney / ABC / ESPN announcers about the sports they announce has not, and it is pathetic. Excellent former players, such as Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neil, and Bill Walton, and not particularly good coaches such as Jeff van Gundy, either are, or pretend to be, such incredible ignoramouses about everything related to basketball that I believe that fact alone can easily account for every viewer who has changed the channel over to DIY. Why would anyone listen to these morons pontificate?
So if people cease paying for ESPN, what about the NFL and NBA? Most of their money is made selling broadcast rights. What if they can’t sell those rights for so much money any more? It’s my impression that the younger generation has a much shorter attention span than their parents-does this mean that they don’t sit still to watch an entire game? If much of their viewing is time-shifted, and on mobile devices, does this mean that ESPN does not serve their needs? Every single business entity is now trying to go after that younger consumer (even if we old folks are the ones with the money). I’m thinking the whole sports paradigm may be changing in a way the old media haven’t yet grasped.
ESPN’s layoffs on Wednesday tilted heavily towards non ‘hot-take’ reporters — basically the ones who just were there to report straight news and offer up a little opinion, but not the type that seeks to drag politics in to any action taken by a player or team. The idea seems to be both that the people spouting outlandish opinions are good for social media buzz, and since the network has favored hiring liberal commentators, it means the ‘hot takes’ are going for the most part lean left.
So the network is doubling down on liberal commentary at the expense of straight reporting, and also have jettisoned many of the annalists from sports where ESPN doesn’t have the game broadcast rights (hockey and soccer look to have taken the biggest hits, while basketball took fewer hits than the NFL or MLB, in terms of people who were let go and which sport they’re most focused on. The network’s betting big on the NBA and college basketball, which probably isn’t that surprising, given how much ESPN pays for both, and overpays for the NBA, based on ratings.)
What this might indicate is that DVRs, video-on-demand, services like Netflix and Hulu, and the ubiquity of video clips online have changed the way enough people think about television that even sports – the holy grail of live programming – is no longer the exception to the rule that people will delay watching. The reason for the ballooning cost of sports license fees is that broadcasters believe viewers want to watch sports live – it has virtually no value as a delay property. Once the score is known, that’s it. The shelf life is over. People want to see it as it happens. That’s why the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the NBA Playoffs, the World Series, etc., all command such high prices. More importantly, rival broadcasters typically clear their schedules and don’t waste new programming going up against something that’s bound to kill their ratings. (A few other non-sports events have the same stature – most notably the Oscars – but not many.)
But if sports is no longer a sure-fire way to get live viewership, networks won’t keep splashing out the record cash they have for World Cups or March Madnesses. And that will flow down to the owners, and the players, and so forth…
ESPN has 4,000 – 8,000 employees. 100 = massive layoff?
That number is misleading: It must include technical crew who work on site, who are usually considered more “crew” than “network” as they are unionized and organized differently than the corporate staff. Also, ESPN has a much larger nationwide footprint, unlike most networks.
For a network to layoff 100 “talent” – i.e., on-camera personnel – at once? Yeah, that’s a lot.
The only reason I haven’t cut the cord is because I love college football and my Texas Tech Red Raiders. Otherwise, F ESPN.
Fair enough. I don’t have cable and have never watched ESPN, am not much of a sports fan and have no idea what I’m talking about.
Is there a ripple effect ? Are other people going to lose their job because these on-air people have been fired?
There would be a ripple effect among these people’s agents, managers, families, any people whose livelihoods might depend on them (e.g., nannies, assistants, etc.).
But what has to be on the minds of everyone at ESPN is whether or not this is just the first whack of the cleaver. After all, Disney only really focused on one segment of staff so far. Being part of such a large conglomerate, one could easily wonder if Disney could decide to try to consolidate positions in their California or New York offices and eliminate positions in Connecticut down the line. If the bottom line continues to be squeezed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney eventually relocates the network to the ABC facilities in L.A. or New York altogether. (Unlike Time Warner’s CNN and other ex-Turner stations, which were also kept in their hometown, ESPN isn’t in a low-cost, right-to-work state like Georgia.)
So this may just be the beginning for ESPN. Or it may signal the start of an industry-wide season of layoffs about to sweep other cable networks. Time will tell.
I used to work at NL Films,. and some people I knew there have been terminated, presumably to cut costs.
Well, the “E” does stand for entertainment.
I used to love ESPN. In like 1989-1993. It died somewhere in the 90’s, after spawning the kind of chowderheads, what’s-his-moustache.
The fact that they’re pointing outside of themselves, that their declining numbers is due to racism/homophobia/vampires, means they were perfectly happy to profit off racists prior being forced to cut staff.
The market works. If people don’t like what you’re selling, you’ll go out of business.
The political bent of ESPN helped me make the decision to cut the cord. If it wasn’t for sports we’d have done it a lot sooner. I was the holdout. Once NASCAR stopped being NASCAR and ESPN turned into the social justice network 24/7, I had no problem letting them go. I think it’s like that for a lot of folks. The straw that broke the camel’s back. With Dale, Jr. retiring from racing after this season, NASCAR may as well accept its fate, too.
Wow you really are low on their totem pole! ;)
I just told a guy yesterday that I hadn’t seen a company alienate their base target audience the way ESPN has since NASCAR. lol I agree with you…..lots of people didn’t want to cut out cable and lose sports but ESPN being more and more unwatchable has made it an easier decision.
Is there really an ESPNw??? I just shake my head…
I began turning away from ESPN and sports radio when I would turn on a game only to hear it being announced or play-called by a woman. Smacks of pandering and it makes me feel angry – not beaming with the pride of solidarity, or whatever I’m supposed to feel.
Let’s look back at the track record of the Democratic Party during the Obama era. This would be the period during which they lost more than 1,000 seats at the state and federal level. And if you can’t figure out why that happened, just look at their appeal to voters over the last 8 years. Their approach went something like this: You Americans are a bunch of racist/sexist/xenophobic/homophobic rednecks! Please vote for me in the next election.
The amazing thing, and the thing that makes me wonder if the Democratic Party has more than two brain cells to rub together, is that they failed to see how this approach caused them to lose. They have spent most of the Trump era doubling down on this approach.
ESPN is taking the same approach with its viewership.
ESPN is owned by Disney. This always seemed like a strange fit. It’s not clear to me that the same culture that’s good at marketing The Magic Kingdom and Its A Small World is going to be good at marketing the NFL and the NBA.
Regarding politics, the camel that broke my straw back with ESPN was their firing Curt Schilling.
Oh, and this, from last week, is rather cathartic.
Read on for the fun.