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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.
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Comment of the day!
ESPN: Our Appeal is Becoming More Selective
Isn’t it time to promote some more posts?? That picture! Ugh, it’s like looking at the end of Western Civilization right there.
I don’t watch ESPN unless they are the only network airing a sporting event that I want to see. This doesn’t happen often, but it did last Sunday evening when my Washington Nationals played the Mets. The coverage was the worst I’ve ever seen for any sporting event. So there’s that along with the ridiculous left-wing nonsense. I wouldn’t be sad to see ESPN fail.
The way we commonly talk about “precious snowflakes” I don’t think this description is as ridiculous as it first sounds. Snowflakery has two main components. First is a keen sensitivity to things you don’t want to hear. This is nothing new. It wasn’t invented by millennials, and isn’t limited to leftists. Over-reactions to particular opinions, or even just choice of words, has plagued this site at times.
The second component of snowflakery is what you do when confronted with something that offends your sensibilities. The reaction by people we commonly describe as snowflakes is to make you shut up. It’s insufficient just to tell you to shut up. They’re compelled to make you shut up, be it through exclusion from some group or institution, by penalty of law, or by physical violence. Conservatives typically respond by suggesting you shut up. We argue, write letters, print op eds, etc.. But if you don’t shut up we just avoid you. Liberals think Fox News must be shut down. Conservatives, and pretty much everybody else, stop watching MSNBC.
The term “snowflake” seems to focus on the sensitivity aspects of the behavior, and might fairly apply to some conservatives. I suspect this is why the commentor conflates these two distinct behaviors. I don’t know if this is genuine sloppy logic, or a deliberate effort to defang the “snowflake” label by convincing readers that conservatives are snowflakes too. There’s a risk of misunderstanding whenever an expression transitions from tribal lingo into the common vernacular, but to the extent that we conflate the sensitivity with the response and just flippantly discharge the snowflake label, we’ll advance efforts to render the term broadly applicable, and, thus, meaningless.
From the standpoint of the viewing public, the best cable system would be, I think, one that presented all its offerings on a menu (with prices affixed to each), and allowed the individual viewer to assemble the mix of viewing options that he or she wanted. And perhaps the best idea would be allowing the viewer to adjust the viewing of a daily basis – or to have an electronic system that logged what one was watching and charged accordingly. That would allow each of us to assemble a menu of channels we actually wanted to watch instead of being charged for the ability to watch channels we did not care for and never viewed. But these cable channels are only incidentally operated for the convenience of the viewers.
That was great! LOL
It’s even simpler than that.
Every channel or network creates an app that you download to your device or is available on your “smart” television. You want to see stuff from that network/channel? You subscribe specifically to that channel and use their app.
No cable company required. It’s all done between you and the network you’re subscribing to directly. (This is essentially what Netflix has done, and it seems that by creating a bunch of their own original programming they’re prepping for the day when other networks shift to this model and yank their stuff from Netflix.)
I suspect that will be the sustainable model going forward. Cut the cable.
(The problem, of course, is that many channels would just cease to exist at this point. They only survive because they’re bundled into cable packages and people are essentially forced to receive them whether they want to or not. But . . . hey, the free market isn’t for sissies.)
Heh. Even with their article on feminist poetry, ESPN steps on a rake.
My 30-something daughter and her football-loving friends subscribe to some service to watch on their phones, that (as I understand it) zips from NFL game to NFL game in real time showing the money plays — scores, remarkable catches or tackles, sacks — while eliminating the moments that drag on between the action, the lengthy officials’ review of a play, and the commercials. Seems like a Readers Digest approach of condensing, only on a digital platform.
I used to know what the letters E-S-P-N stood for. I don’t think any of them corresponded to feminist poetry. I figure the combination is itself stepping on a rake.
Agree that a la carte would be great. I believe, however, that was not possible because without each cable franchise being granted by local jurisdictions, with guaranteed revenues and monopolistic lack of competition, the cable companies would not have had the juice to afford the cost of building the infrastructure for cable.
If the technology had been static, then perhaps that would have been enough to broaden choice eventually. But technology is anything but static. Demands for broadband internet and greater and faster bandwidth exploded.
Hopefully someday I can have two or three movie channels, a local station or two and some variety of other stuff without having to pay for 180 channels, at least 165 of which I will never watch. (I like a little bit of streaming. netflix and amazon video, but until I can access all of the Turner Classic Movies library, I’ll have to pay for all that other crap so I can watch old movies in black and white not available anywhere else).
When I was without a TV service in my apartment I searched up people who livestreamed the games. Buffering could be an issue, but it was kind of interesting because they could come from anywhere so you’d get a greater variation on the commercials.