Disney stock slammed as ESPN loses subscribers
- 8 years ago
Sports fans typically feast on the long Thanksgiving weekend but the news has been anything but yummy for Walt Disney shareholders.
Disney's stock was down 3.26% to $114.80 Friday morning, after the media conglomerate revealed late Wednesday in regulatory filings that ESPN's subscriber base has plummeted to 92 million as of Oct. 3.
That's down from 95 million just a little over a year earlier.
The venerable sports network has traditionally been a major profit generator for Disney, with fans still driven to watch sporting events in real time such as Monday Night Football.
But live sports programming is expensive to produce.
And an increasing number of cord cutters are ditching pricey cable subscriptions and turning instead to a la carte options, available through streaming services and smartphone apps.
Disney's stock was down 3.26% to $114.80 Friday morning, after the media conglomerate revealed late Wednesday in regulatory filings that ESPN's subscriber base has plummeted to 92 million as of Oct. 3.
That's down from 95 million just a little over a year earlier.
The venerable sports network has traditionally been a major profit generator for Disney, with fans still driven to watch sporting events in real time such as Monday Night Football.
But live sports programming is expensive to produce.
And an increasing number of cord cutters are ditching pricey cable subscriptions and turning instead to a la carte options, available through streaming services and smartphone apps.