MASN has lost 27% of its subscribers in 8 years

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, atomic said:

Yeah and the other companies have figured out what is going to happen.  You can purchase stand alone Disney, ESPN and HBO.  I think everyone knows the end game to what is going to happen.   Cable and Phone companies will provide Internet and you will subscribe to whatever channel you want. 

 

The problem is that you won't save anything and you'll lose all the weird channels that you only watch once in a while.  When everyone has their own streaming service at $9.99 a month it doesn't take that many to add up to your current cable bill, especially when you have to also pay (in my case) $80 a month for high-speed internet to take advantage of any streaming.

And it's going to be a hassle.  I don't want Disney, I don't like Disney.  But I'd like to watch the Mandolorian.  So one month I'll probably sign up, binge watch it all, then call somebody, sit on hold for 10 minutes, explain why I want to cancel, then finally get them to cancel.  Repeat for every other streaming service. I'm starting to think Directv isn't so bad, except for all the content going streaming-only to get you on everyone's $9.99 a month plan.

[atomic]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The problem is that you won't save anything and you'll lose all the weird channels that you only watch once in a while.  When everyone has their own streaming service at $9.99 a month it doesn't take that many to add up to your current cable bill, especially when you have to also pay (in my case) $80 a month for high-speed internet to take advantage of any streaming.

And it's going to be a hassle.  I don't want Disney, I don't like Disney.  But I'd like to watch the Mandolorian.  So one month I'll probably sign up, binge watch it all, then call somebody, sit on hold for 10 minutes, explain why I want to cancel, then finally get them to cancel.  Repeat for every other streaming service. I'm starting to think Directv isn't so bad, except for all the content going streaming-only to get you on everyone's $9.99 a month plan.

I only subscribe to Disney+, Hulu and Netflix.   I think Disney+ is $7 a month, Hulu is $7 a month.  Not sure what Netflix costs as my wife pays for it.  I did subscribe to SlingTv but the only thing we watched was Disney Jr and Nick Jr.  But as soon as Disney+ came out we cancelled it.

Everything I would want to see is either on network TV or Hulu.  There aren't any weird channels I want to watch.  I am not into Reality TV which seems to be what cable tv is about.  Or boring dramas.

My internet bill is $40 a month and that includes a land-line phone service as well.

I had DirecTv they are Ok the first year and then jack you bill up to insane amount after the first year. If you want to call in every year and complain they will knock your bill down.  Not worth the effort. 

As for people cancelling after a month.  That is what I do with HBO. I wanted to watch the show Crashing. So I subscribed.  Finished up the last season of Veep and then watched all of Curb your enthusiasm along with the final season of Crashing and cancelled after the month was up.  Nothing else on there I want to watch.  

I mean you are spending a large amount of money on TV. If that is what your priority  that is fine. But If I have extra free money to waste I would just increase contribution to daughter's 529 plan.  I also have $35 mobile phone plan.  I don't like to waste money on unnecessary things that provide me no benefit.  I would rather spend it on an international vacation or just save the money. 

Say you are paying $140 a month more than me.  If you put that into a 529 plan when you kid was born you would have $30240 more in your 529 plan before accounting for earnings and tax savings by the time they turned 18. 

[Redskins Rick]

22 hours ago, Frobby said:

From a MASN court filing last week:

“MASN is trying to survive in the face of a paradigm shift in the cable television industry...MASN has lost over 2 million subscribers in the past eight years due to cable customer cord cutting and cord shaving.”    
 

There is an exhibit to the court papers showing that in 2011, MASN had 9.2 million subscribers (5.9 mm in-market and 3.3 mm out-of-market), while in 2018 it had 6.7 million subscribers (4.7 mm in-market and 2.1 mm out-of-market).    Overall that’s a 1.2 mm subscriber loss in-market (21%) and 1.3 mm out-of-market (38%), a total of 2.5 mm lost subscribers, 27% of their 2011 total.   Ouch!

At the end of the day, I suspect they are still making a pretty penny.

I think I read a few weeks ago, that MASN had the 3rd or 4th best cable TV package for revenue.

[DrungoHazewood]

4 hours ago, atomic said:

I only subscribe to Disney+, Hulu and Netflix.   I think Disney+ is $7 a month, Hulu is $7 a month.  Not sure what Netflix costs as my wife pays for it.  I did subscribe to SlingTv but the only thing we watched was Disney Jr and Nick Jr.  But as soon as Disney+ came out we cancelled it.

Everything I would want to see is either on network TV or Hulu.  There aren't any weird channels I want to watch.  I am not into Reality TV which seems to be what cable tv is about.  Or boring dramas.

My internet bill is $40 a month and that includes a land-line phone service as well.

I had DirecTv they are Ok the first year and then jack you bill up to insane amount after the first year. If you want to call in every year and complain they will knock your bill down.  Not worth the effort. 

As for people cancelling after a month.  That is what I do with HBO. I wanted to watch the show Crashing. So I subscribed.  Finished up the last season of Veep and then watched all of Curb your enthusiasm along with the final season of Crashing and cancelled after the month was up.  Nothing else on there I want to watch.  

I mean you are spending a large amount of money on TV. If that is what your priority  that is fine. But If I have extra free money to waste I would just increase contribution to daughter's 529 plan.  I also have $35 mobile phone plan.  I don't like to waste money on unnecessary things that provide me no benefit.  I would rather spend it on an international vacation or just save the money. 

Say you are paying $140 a month more than me.  If you put that into a 529 plan when you kid was born you would have $30240 more in your 529 plan before accounting for earnings and tax savings by the time they turned 18. 

Yes, I've done the math.  I get the math.  It's about time for that annual call to Directv to threaten to cancel.  I'll do that over Christmas.

It would be nice if there was more than one option in St. Mary's County for high speed internet.  But there's not, so it's $80 or you're back to 1999.

[Satyr3206]

7 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yes, I've done the math.  I get the math.  It's about time for that annual call to Directv to threaten to cancel.  I'll do that over Christmas.

It would be nice if there was more than one option in St. Mary's County for high speed internet.  But there's not, so it's $80 or you're back to 1999.

It's the same here. One option for high speed internet, the cable company. A friend tried satellite internet and it had service issues, losing signal, etc. A little more competition might help. Unlikely to happen though.

[AnythingO's]

6 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It would be nice if there was more than one option in St. Mary's County for high speed internet.  But there's not, so it's $80 or you're back to 1999.

So where I am in Loudoun Co. VA I have no cable available although Comcast and FIOS are all around me (5 homes on 50 acres). Comcast said $10K to connect. I have used Dish and Direct TV and Hughes Net.

Right now I have a local HotSpot with ATT that gives me landline (for account history) and Internet (22 GB high speed) for $25 plus fees. I can stream Netflix fine but it wouldn't do for gamers.

[DrungoHazewood]

9 hours ago, AnythingO's said:

So where I am in Loudoun Co. VA I have no cable available although Comcast and FIOS are all around me (5 homes on 50 acres). Comcast said $10K to connect. I have used Dish and Direct TV and Hughes Net.

Right now I have a local HotSpot with ATT that gives me landline (for account history) and Internet (22 GB high speed) for $25 plus fees. I can stream Netflix fine but it wouldn't do for gamers.

That's the situation I was in up to about 3-4 years ago.  When I moved in 10 years ago my house was 1000' from the nearest cable line, down a private road.  Metrocast was the local provider, they quoted me about $5000 to run the cable.  We're probably 30 miles from the nearest FIOS installation, no other high-speed options. Satellite is no good for internet unless you have nothing else. 

So I used Directv, and a Verizon aircard for internet.  Soft data cap around 20 Gig after which it dropped to dial-up speed, even before you hit that it was not quite fast enough to really stream anything.  Then a couple houses got built that moved the end of the cable closer, the quote dropped to $2500, and I had to do it.  I guess we could have survived on the old setup, but with two middle school kids needing access for homework and countless devices it would have been highly annoying every day.

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, Satyr3206 said:

It's the same here. One option for high speed internet, the cable company. A friend tried satellite internet and it had service issues, losing signal, etc. A little more competition might help. Unlikely to happen though.

I'll try to stay away from politics, but there are some situations where the free market breaks down.  This is one of those.  If the cable companies were left to their own they probably wouldn't even run service to many rural or even suburban locations with lower population densities and longer distances between houses because it's hard to turn a profit and keep the infrastructure maintained compared to more dense areas.  In many cases they only do it because local governments demand it in the contracts with the companies.

My family has a farm in western Virginia that's 15 miles from the nearest town of 1,000 people.  The road they're on has no cable at all, and it would be many, many thousands of dollars per house to install.  This in an area where the income is probably half or 2/3rds the national average.  It's just never going to happen if they have to pay for it. My aunt would have to pay probably half or more of her annual income to have cable installed.

[Redskins Rick]

9 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'll try to stay away from politics, but there are some situations where the free market breaks down.  This is one of those.  If the cable companies were left to their own they probably wouldn't even run service to many rural or even suburban locations with lower population densities and longer distances between houses because it's hard to turn a profit and keep the infrastructure maintained compared to more dense areas.  In many cases they only do it because local governments demand it in the contracts with the companies.

My family has a farm in western Virginia that's 15 miles from the nearest town of 1,000 people.  The road they're on has no cable at all, and it would be many, many thousands of dollars per house to install.  This in an area where the income is probably half or 2/3rds the national average.  It's just never going to happen if they have to pay for it. My aunt would have to pay probably half or more of her annual income to have cable installed.

My son went from rural Alaska to rural OK and back, and if you have land and not in a sub-division, then your options are usually only DIRECTTV

[Frobby]

So, in case you can't read the OP, written in December 2019, it said that according to court papers in the MASN lawsuit, MASN had lost 2.4 subscribers from 2011 to 2018 (from 5.9 mm in market and 3.3 mm out of market in 2011 to 4.7 mm in-market and 2.1 mm out-of-market in 2018).

Today, the Washington Post reported that MASN subscriptions have dropped from 5.6 mm in 2018 to 3.6 mm this year.  A Nationals sale could be hindered by the MASN mess — or help solve it (msn.com)

Look no further than this if you are wondering why MASN is cutting costs at every turn.   

The rest of the article is worth reading, though it doesn't really say anything that hasn't been said before.

 

[wildcard]

John Angelos and Elias have understood that the revenue for MASN was decreasing of a long time.  Thus Elias keeps talking about following the Tampa model and the Orioles as being a small market team.

[vab]

With the Nationals down the street they are a small market team or mid-market at best. 

[DrungoHazewood]

58 minutes ago, Frobby said:

So, in case you can't read the OP, written in December 2019, it said that according to court papers in the MASN lawsuit, MASN had lost 2.4 subscribers from 2011 to 2018 (from 5.9 mm in market and 3.3 mm out of market in 2011 to 4.7 mm in-market and 2.1 mm out-of-market in 2018).

Today, the Washington Post reported that MASN subscriptions have dropped from 5.6 mm in 2018 to 3.6 mm this year.  A Nationals sale could be hindered by the MASN mess — or help solve it (msn.com)

Look no further than this if you are wondering why MASN is cutting costs at every turn.   

The rest of the article is worth reading, though it doesn't really say anything that hasn't been said before.

 

So it's increasingly likely that the Angeloses will drag out the lawsuit until MASN is no longer a viable business?  Looks like our best bet is for both the Nats and O's to be sold and the incoming groups want nothing to do with winning ol' Pete's grudge match.

[Going Underground]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

So, in case you can't read the OP, written in December 2019, it said that according to court papers in the MASN lawsuit, MASN had lost 2.4 subscribers from 2011 to 2018 (from 5.9 mm in market and 3.3 mm out of market in 2011 to 4.7 mm in-market and 2.1 mm out-of-market in 2018).

Today, the Washington Post reported that MASN subscriptions have dropped from 5.6 mm in 2018 to 3.6 mm this year.  A Nationals sale could be hindered by the MASN mess — or help solve it (msn.com)

Look no further than this if you are wondering why MASN is cutting costs at every turn.   

The rest of the article is worth reading, though it doesn't really say anything that hasn't been said before.

 

But if you have Xfinity or other cable network ,you pay a regional sports fee.MASN gets a share of that whether you watch their crappy run network. MASN is still making a good profit with two baseball teams in the market. I can get the article about how much they make again but I am at work. They probably could have made more but they don't run their RSN well either.

The regional sports fee has gone up 210% over the last five years.

 

The cable operator's regional sports fee in 2021 has been as high as $10.75 a month so a $1.50-2 a month increase would put it near $13 a month in some markets.Nov 29, 2021

[Going Underground]

• Baltimore Orioles operating income 2021 | Statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/829611/baltimore-orioles-operating-income/