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ESPN Sues Verizon To Stop New Sports-Free TV Bundles
Mr D from 63 writes: ESPN isn't a fan of Verizon's new way of offering cable channels under its Fios TV service — they're now suing Verizon for it. The lawsuit comes after Verizon unveiled new bundles that allow customers to choose specific packages of channels that can be swapped every 30 days. ESPN claims this offer is not in compliance with their agreements with Verizon. In the U.S., ESPN depends heavily on viewership during the football season, then basketball. "ESPN is at the forefront of embracing innovative ways to deliver high-quality content and value to consumers on multiple platforms, but that must be done in compliance with our agreements," said an ESPN spokeswoman in a statement. "We simply ask that Verizon abide by the terms of our contracts."
If Verizon is in fact breaking a contract it has with ESPN then all I can say is that it is a horrible contract.
I don't watch TV, haven't for more years than I can remember, I don't care for commercials and I don't care for the content. I have 0 (zero) interest in watching any sports on TV whatsoever, never had any interest in watching sports, never will have any interest in watching sports.
Just saying, forcing somebody like me to sign up for a service that provides sports information as part of the package is a 100% way to have me avoid that service.
You can't handle the truth.
There is absolutely nothing innovative about what they do other than pick the pockets of every cable/satellite subscriber in the country. It is attitudes like theirs that are pushing more and more people to just cut the cord and build their own a-la-carte bundles from Netflix or Hulu.
I would gladly pay more for a bundle that did not include ESPN, or any of the other "sports" networks, or Empty-V or any of its myriad clones. Or the shopping channels.
I thought that was the only reason anyone had cable anymore, for the sportsing. Especially since HBONow is finally a thing.
There's about to be way too many comments about how ESPN sucks and cable companies suck and everyone sucks for not giving me what I want. There's about to be not nearly enough comments about shutting up and voting with your dollars. Guess who enables this behavior? People who pay for it. Guess who has an option? People who pay for it. Guess who was never forced to pay for it? People who pay for it.
Aside from all that, Verizon still has to abide by the contracts. It's irrelevant how shitty the contract is for whom or what could be done which is better for consumers.
Long signatures suck.
"We simply ask that Verizon abide by the terms of our contracts."
Translation: And force people to pay for stuff they don't want.
Personally, I've *never* (ever) watched any of the ESPN channels and am annoyed at having to pay for them. Sure, I understand that a-la-carte programming *may* be expensive - at the moment - but I imagine business models and revenue streams will adapt as time goes on. In the mean time, Disney can kiss my shiny metal ass.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
First what?
First time you'll ever see me actually root for Verizon? If so, yes. First.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I know if my mother-in-law had just the Hallmark channel, the game show network and one other she'd switch providers, even it only saved her 30%.
Alternatively, if there was a way to just get Netflix to stream random stuff in preselected genres all day I could get her off cable altogether - tens of millions of people just want the TV on all the time because they live alone, but can't stand the crap the broadcast networks have during the day and have no need for ESPN.
ESPN makes so much because of the crazy model that's currently in place. It is doubtful they could make as much money "getting on the ball", because a big part of their profits right now are customers that dont even want to be customers. In other words, lock in.
I don't know if it is integrated with Netflix yet (or ever) but it address the exact use case you're describing. Picking random stuff from the set of all videos I have access to, group them logically into thematic clusters and just keep throwing content on the screen without the user having to invest any mental energy in choosing what to watch beyond "I feel like switching from the comedy channel to the science fiction drama channel."
I've been surprised to see how many people like this method of interfacing with their video content libraries more than selecting something they'd like to watch.
Just like Google after them, ESPN was once the plucky, decent, little engine that could. But once the money started rolling in, they both turned into rapacious, black-hearted juggernauts with out-sized influence at every level including regulatory capture.
A pox on both their mansions.
All of these companies are just going to sue themselves into oblivion. They've been raping and pillaging for so long, they don't know how to run an honest business. Too bad they are going to cause so much collateral damage on the way down.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Super Bowl XLIX was broadcast on NBC. What was your point? That people subscribe to ESPN for the Super Bowl?
Not. Reset. Try again.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Superbowl was on a OTA channel, no subscription required
This is another attempt at a Cable Company attempting to dictate the pricing that a content provider demands. Recently Verizon got rid of the Weather Channel. I for one applaud it because unlike a weather service, it's become a drama pump for all Comcast/NBC shit that the wouldn't put on the other channels. Especially during the evenings where instead of getting weather information you're getting "digging for rocks on mountains with pick axes" or "weather disasters that happened decades ago." Bah!
I think this is a double-ended play by VZ, one to squeeze the content providers and two to squeeze the consumers at some future point because they channels you had now are just going to cost you more because we "unbundled it for you" just like electricity providers unbundled the power generating services from the wires into your home. Yeah, that never works out well.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Those of us who were born without the "sports gene" would seriously LOVE to be able to get a tv package withOUT that ESPN crap.. Of course, if it didnt heavily contribute to the cost of the tv package, I wouldn't care, but since it DOES add to the package cost, it could die a gruesome death as far as I'm concerned. You GO, Verizon... Kick those ESPN lawyers in the ass....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
This is one of the reasons I no longer pay for cable. What I can't get off the antenna on the roof or streaming, I do without.
But just assuming I wanted to pay $100+ a month for TELEVISION, the thing that would grate on me more than anything else is to be paying for, subsidizing if you will, content in which I have not the slightest interest.
In cases like MSNBC, where real viewership has dropped to the point where it no longer justifies advertising dollars, and the only thing keeping the station (and others -- I'm unfairly picking on MSNBC) is the contracts that the cable providers are locked into. The thing is, sports are (so they tell me) POPULAR, people actually *want* to watch them, will pay extra for sports packages on cable and satellite, and can be furious when a game is blacked out in their area. This is the least likely content type to care about being subsidized by the cable industry. What am I missing here?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Hooray for Verizon for trying to challenge the fucked up cable system. Maybe, just maybe, they see end of "cable" as a thing when anything can be streamed instead and want to stave this off by making at least kind of sane channel choices available.
Well, kind of. I think they made a lot of this mess for themselves. I think the TV channel sources saw the cable companies successfully ratchet up the prices continuously and figured they needed to be in on that money bandwagon. Enter in all the must-carry bundles and tier requirements and all the bullshit that got us to 800 channels of nothing for $150/month (and not even HBO, damnit).
And the cable companies didn't care because they could just pass off the costs to their customers through ever higher prices and announce "Wow! We've added even more high value content, ESPN Classic 4 -- all those great historic bocce tournaments from the 1950s".
And both the channel providers and the cable companies got fat and sassy.
And now everyone hates cable, hates paying $150/month for a bunch of channels they never watch and is dropping it as fast as they can.
You pay for channels you don't want so you can watch the few channels you do want.
The communications director at a local cable service provider once told me the problem with ESPN: it's the most expensive channel in their entire cable lineup. They would love to separate it out and treat it a-la-carte like HBO, but their agreements don't allow for it. Either everyone gets it, or no one does. And he said everyone gets it, because whenever the feed goes out for that channel, their switchboards light up like a Christmas tree. (He also mentioned that the other channel that customers most hate to lose is Lifetime, though that's not nearly as expensive.)
It's extortion, plain and simple. Though ESPN is only partly to blame...the NFL, NBA, and NCAA are also guilty for making game broadcasting rights so pricy.