ESPN insists TV trends are not changing

The sports network backs up its statement with data but doesn't mention sabotage of online viewing

Fewer people are breaking away from traditional cable than previously thought, says ESPN.  The sports network looked at the same sample of TV viewers that Nielsen uses to break down TV ratings and found that TV cancellation is a “very minor” occurrence, ESPN told the New York Times.

To be specific, 0.28% of U.S. households have made the move to cut ties with traditional cable in favor of Web-based TV viewing in the last three months.  This flies in the face of the onslaught of headlines in recent months announcing the imminent demise of cable.  Furthermore, while 0.28% of households made the daring move to give up cable, 0.17% of households became new TV subscribers.

“So the net amount of cord-cutting for one quarter was just one-tenth of 1 percent,” said Glenn Enoch, the vice president for integrated media research for ESPN, to the New York Times. “We got a little worn out reading headline after headline saying, ‘Cord-cutting, it’s a disaster; young people are abandoning TV.’ For our strategic purposes, we needed to know what was really going on.”

Nielsen's sample consists of some 25,000 households, and the company has verified ESPN’s findings.  SNL Kagan, a research firm, revealed similar data: out of more than 114 million TV households, only 119,000 discontinued their TV subscription service in the third quarter of this year.   

ESPN found virtually no cord-cutting among heavy sports-viewing households, which comes as no surprise given the fact that sporting events are more difficult to watch for free online.

But all this tells anyone is that ESPN is desperate to convince itself that TV-viewing trends aren’t changing.  It seems a little disingenuous for major TV networks (like ESPN) to go out of their way to make it all but impossible for anyone to watch TV online and then to turn around and say that few households are actually watching TV online.  How many people were ready to hurl their box-top sets into the streets in celebration of Google TV before ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and Viacom quashed it?  (The loss of Viacom probably didn’t play a huge role in killing Google TV…)

It’s like an obsessive stalker putting sugar in your gas tank and then insisting that you obviously don’t want to leave because if you did, you would’ve left already.  

This is unhealthy behavior, ESPN.  You need to face the facts: it’s over.  We’re done.  I’m changing my phone number and my locks.  Please stop putting sugar in my gas tank. 

Image source: thefuntimesguide.com