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Pac 12 network / direct tv (PACN now on fuboTV streaming)

Larry Scott not only said he wanted to create a national confference but also held a media tour in NYC back when the Pac-12 was formed. Here we are 5 years later and the Big 10 and SEC networks each have 5 times+ the number of subscribers that the P12 Network has.

That's not a failure, that's a massive failure.
Yes, Larry Scott is a massive failure up to this point. Can he redeem himself?
 
It is entertaining to listen to folks say fire the coach, fire the commissioner. Fire em all cuz we're not happy.
 
He hate me!
images
 
Anyone want to list the e-mails of Benson and George so we can e-mail them in a nice way that we are disappointed with our ability to watch CU games as cord cutters?
 

the latest cable network “Universe Estimates” report from the Nielsen Company, which looks at how many households subscribe to pay television services and which services carry specific networks. The quarterly report for April 2016 showed a median household-subscriber decline of 2.5 percent across the cable landscape.

Disney-owned networks (ESPN) were among the hardest hit, declining 3.6 percent, while Viacom networks declined 3.1 percent. Faring much better was 21st Century Fox, whose networks saw a median decline of only 0.9 percent.

None of those declines were a fluke. According to Wieser, Nielsen data shows declines of about 2 percent per year since the beginning of 2014. This despite the fact that new household formation seems to be on an upswingfor the first time since the financial crisis, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Wieser said the trend of cord-shaving will leave networks especially vulnerable over the long term, as skinny bundles become the norm and affiliate fees begin to reflect lower penetration for networks.

“Cord-shaving disproportionately impacts networks that are either particularly expensive or which distributors are willing to go without.”

Specifically, Wieser singled out the Walt Disney Company and Viacom Inc. as the media giants that face the biggest threat from skinny bundles. Disney-owned ESPN is by far the most expensive network for pay TV operators to carry,
 




Both good reads on what the options are. The first one is from a guy thats a college sports blogger and is a blow by blow of what you'll go thru.

The 2nd one is about the Sling TV versus Sony Vue which I hadn't heard of and seems the most compelling package option right now.
 


ESPN and CBS have more plans to reach cord cutters
Disney reconsiders selling ESPN a la carte, while CBS teases new All Access and Showtime options.

If you needed more evidence that the cable TV bundle is crumbling, look no further than Disney and CBS.

Speaking at an industry conference in Florida, the heads of both media companies hinted at more ways they’ll reach people who’ve abandoned, avoided, or cut down on traditional pay TV packages. None of these plans involve trying to lure people back to a bloated bundle.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, for instance, said that ESPN could offer a standalone, direct-to-consumer service, according to Los Angeles Times reporter Daniel Miller. ESPN must work out some pricing issues first, but Iger said negotiating rights would not be a problem, the Orange County Register reports. Iger has discussed the possibility of a streaming ESPN service in the past, but in 2015 he said it probably wouldn’t happen within the next five years. Disney appears to be changing its thinking as ESPN subscriber numbers shrink.
 


ESPN and CBS have more plans to reach cord cutters
Disney reconsiders selling ESPN a la carte, while CBS teases new All Access and Showtime options.

If you needed more evidence that the cable TV bundle is crumbling, look no further than Disney and CBS.

Speaking at an industry conference in Florida, the heads of both media companies hinted at more ways they’ll reach people who’ve abandoned, avoided, or cut down on traditional pay TV packages. None of these plans involve trying to lure people back to a bloated bundle.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, for instance, said that ESPN could offer a standalone, direct-to-consumer service, according to Los Angeles Times reporter Daniel Miller. ESPN must work out some pricing issues first, but Iger said negotiating rights would not be a problem, the Orange County Register reports. Iger has discussed the possibility of a streaming ESPN service in the past, but in 2015 he said it probably wouldn’t happen within the next five years. Disney appears to be changing its thinking as ESPN subscriber numbers shrink.

And none of the options you listed will help me watch CU football. So how is it again that Larry Scott is doing a bang-up job?
 
And none of the options you listed will help me watch CU football. So how is it again that Larry Scott is doing a bang-up job?

You can't. And you won't in the short term. But you might be able to down the road.

The point of those posts is that ESPN, Disney, and the rest can put all the fingers they want into the **** but its leaking like a sieve. A friend of mine is a manager at Dish. She just this week was forced to lay off half of her staff. Until the dust settles the PAC12N is screwed. And if I were them Id wait until it does because in this environment no one is going to make a deal thats a positive for the conference network. That ship has sailed.

I still have direcTV but I am about to cut the cord because I am tired of paying $125 a month. Most of what I watch is on Sling for $20 and Vue too.
 
Even ESPiN is going direct-to-consumer. PAC Network needs to rethink it's model. The more eyes the better.
 
You can't. And you won't in the short term. But you might be able to down the road.

The point of those posts is that ESPN, Disney, and the rest can put all the fingers they want into the **** but its leaking like a sieve. A friend of mine is a manager at Dish. She just this week was forced to lay off half of her staff. Until the dust settles the PAC12N is screwed. And if I were them Id wait until it does because in this environment no one is going to make a deal thats a positive for the conference network. That ship has sailed.

I still have direcTV but I am about to cut the cord because I am tired of paying $125 a month. Most of what I watch is on Sling for $20 and Vue too.
To the bold:

Meanwhile the other conferences are pulling in ridiculous profits from their TV contracts. Larry Scott is not a victim of circumstance in this, he's a poor negotiator who failed to solidify this venture before launch and is now watching the network circle the drain.
 
I agree. Vue sounds like a better deal though. Sling only allows one stream. Vue allows 5. So if you have multiple TVs you pay less.

I already have an XB1, so no need to buy new equipment for sling. Would have to get a new console to run Vue. Also xbox one already streams in 4k.
 
You can't. And you won't in the short term. But you might be able to down the road.

The point of those posts is that ESPN, Disney, and the rest can put all the fingers they want into the **** but its leaking like a sieve. A friend of mine is a manager at Dish. She just this week was forced to lay off half of her staff. Until the dust settles the PAC12N is screwed. And if I were them Id wait until it does because in this environment no one is going to make a deal thats a positive for the conference network. That ship has sailed.

I still have direcTV but I am about to cut the cord because I am tired of paying $125 a month. Most of what I watch is on Sling for $20 and Vue too.

This is the point I got to. Was basically paying for internet and the sports channels I watched in my cable package. Outside of the Buffs, Nuggets, and Broncos I wasn't watching much else. I like the original content on some of the streaming sites better than the crap that's being put out on network and cable tv. And the cable channels I would watch like HBO or Showtime have their own streaming sites now and its cheaper than it would have been on my cable bill. If Comcast or the Satellites came up with a stand alone streaming option I would consider it.
 
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I already have an XB1, so no need to buy new equipment for sling. Would have to get a new console to run Vue. Also xbox one already streams in 4k.

In the tweet I posted above that has the sling picture the guy said he had trouble with streaming with the Xbox
 
In the tweet I posted above that has the sling picture the guy said he had trouble with streaming with the Xbox

XB1 performance on apps is going to depend on your wifi connection. Mine is very good, don't have the issues that the author does with ESPN. Also, worst case, I can stream via chromecast to the XB and make it work.
 
Regardless of hardware (I've used most), if you're streaming and want to:
-change between channels quickly
-pause/rewind/fast forward without god awful annoying lags.
You pretty much have to have a wired network connection.

I have an AC 1750 wifi network that I can get fantastic speed through. Even so, hooking up the wire was a night and day difference in my TV watching enjoyment (particularly for sling and tablo).
 
I already have an XB1, so no need to buy new equipment for sling. Would have to get a new console to run Vue. Also xbox one already streams in 4k.
Amazon Fire TV devices have Vue FYI, much cheaper than a PS4. Or you could look into a used PS3.
 
A good read....



The cable industry in 2016 feels a little like the newspaper industry in 2000. Technology has provided a better, cheaper way to distribute this content, so how long will consumers keep paying the amount they pay now? For newspapers, the dropoff was precipitous. ESPN executives seem more forward-thinking than their newspaper brethren and have certainly built the infrastructure to compete in an over-the-top, streaming world. Yet the days of giant, reliable subscription revenue may end and never return.

ESPN has reportedly lost seven million subscribers over the past two years. Assuming those people only had ESPN and none of the network's other channels—most likely did, but let's estimate conservatively—that's seven million people who are no longer paying $6 a month for ESPN. That's a loss of $42 million a month, or $504 million a year. ...losing half a billion a year in what had previously been reliable revenue has to be unsettling—especially when the network has a reported average of $1.9 billion a year committed to the rights for Monday Night Football and a reported $1.4 billion a year committed to NBA rights when the new deal kicks in next season.

Discussions for a dedicated ACC Network began about four years ago, yet no such channel appears on any cable system. It is supposed to launch by next year, but in November the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Ken Sugiura reported that Georgia Tech president Bud Peterson told his athletic board that ESPN wanted a delay. "[ESPN] had come back and said that in some of the other instances where [conference] networks have started, they lost considerable amounts of money in the first couple of years," Peterson said, according to the paper. "What they'd like to do is delay the start for a couple years and do the necessary preparation."

ACC commissioner John Swofford called those comments "premature and speculative" at the time, and given that Swofford is a ninja, it's quite possible everything is on track for an on-time launch. Still, the longer the delay, the less likely a traditional cable network ever happens for all the reasons described above. Now is bad time to start a cable network. By 2018, the cable universe may have reached a point where no one is starting a new network.
 
ESPN's $2.25 billion deal with the SEC expires in 2024. That's just one of many rich contracts held by ESPN and the other big networks. Billions of dollars are committed over many years to the conferences. And with cord cutting becoming more mainstream, ESPN's future revenue streams are looking more shakey all the time. Ditto for Fox, CBS, and NBC.

ESPN's parent company Disney sites cord cutters as a reason for earnings pressure and a falling stock price.

At what point do university presidents feel cord cutting pressures downstream? Already ESecPN has firmly crossed the line from a sports network to basically a promoter of a conference. After all, ESPN is legally bound to write big checks to the SEC, so they naturally have to milk that relationship for all its worth, even at the expense of alienating other conferences with smaller deals.

It stands to reason that more cord cutters will lead to even more preferential treatment from ESPN to the SEC. ESPN has got a milk cow and they have to milk it for all its worth for the full term of the contract.

It also stands to reason that the P12 network isn't going to grow revenues with a small and stagnant subscriber base. The P12N is also bound to contracts that require paying out to the member schools. Of course the P12N is vulnerable to revenue pressures from cord cutters just like everyone else.

Larry Scott needs to expand the subscriber base. And he cannot reasonably expect average per subscriber revenue to grow, or even stay flat. At some point he has to give on price and make up for loss of subscriber revenue through volume. The commissioner's pressure to look at partnering or consolidating with other conferences continue to mount, at least for media deals, if not through out right expansion.

Or he could stay the course, which would only lead to more revenue pressures on the P12N that continues to hit P12 conference members in the wallet.

As a fans of P12 sports teams, any money saved by cord cutting probably comes back to bite us in the ass in the form of increased ticket prices and solicitations from the foundation to make donations. Something has to make up for network shortfalls caused by cord cutting because the bonds on facilities expansion and costs to run a competitive athletic department don't go away.

The Hail Mary pass is an over-the-top distribution model that is priced right, where the volume of value conscious cord cutters are still putting $15M - $20M paychecks into to the pockets of schools. It's going to take a national footprint for that to happen.

These pressures may not get to Larry Scott in 2016. But the day is coming where a business growth model that captures revenue in a changing IPTV media environment is what will define success or failure for Larry Scott. Already the failure to navigate a DTV deal or craft an industry best PPV on-demand Tier 3 media plan that is returning a profit has undermined confidence in his ability to deliver.
 
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