• VideoNuze Report Podcast #87 - Feb. 11, 2011

    Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 87th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for February 11, 2011.

    In this podcast, Daisy and I do a deep dive into the role of sports in pay-TV packaging, based on my post from Monday, "Not A Sports Fan? Then You're Getting Sacked For At Least $2 Billion Per Year." I think this is a fascinating topic and something that has been under-reported even though it has huge implications for pay-TV subscription rates as over-the-top services gain awareness.

    The basic premise of my post was that since a relatively small cluster of sports-oriented channels (e.g. ESPN, TNT, Regional Sports Networks and others) collectively cost pay-TV operators $10 per month, then the charges being incurred by non-fans and casual who fans who rarely, if ever watch these channels, could amount to at least $2 billion per year. Since writing the post and gaining feedback from various sources, it's actually quite possible that the annual charges incurred in exchange for little-to-no value could exceed $3 billion. Whatever the number is, it's very large, and effectively represents a massive subsidy that non-fans and casual fans pay each year because of escalating sports TV rights deals and astronomical player compensation.

    Click here to listen to the podcast (17 minutes, 8 seconds)



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