MASN has lost 27% of its subscribers in 8 years

[Going Underground]

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

 

• Baltimore Orioles revenue 2021 | Statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/196638/revenue-of-the-baltimore-orioles-since-2006/

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, Going Underground said:

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

Does this have something to do with MASN?

To my understanding, the 3.6 mm MASN subscribers includes the people who get it as part of their cable package.  As we know, there is no other way to get MASN in-market.   

[Going Underground]

11 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Does this have something to do with MASN?

To my understanding, the 3.6 mm MASN subscribers includes the people who get it as part of their cable package.  As we know, there is no other way to get MASN in-market.   

I am curious how they got these numbers as well. Since the Orioles are a privately held company. Forbes does something I know as well. I emailed the author Christina Gough who is supposed to be a sports business analyst. I will post something of I hear back.

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, Going Underground said:

I am curious how they got these numbers as well. Since the Orioles are a privately held company. Forbes does something I know as well. I emailed the author Christina Gough who is supposed to be a sports business analyst. I will post something of I hear back.

I’ve gotten the impression in the past that Statistica just uses the Forbes numbers.   That’s just an impression, I could be wrong. 

[Hallas]

So I think MASN's subscriber losses mirror a general trend; ESPN lost a similar number of viewers in the past 10 or so years.

 

This is really more complicated though than an issue with streaming.  Developing a standalone streaming service doesn't seem to be all that lucrative given such a (relatively speaking) low subscriber count.  It costs a lot of money to develop and host this type of service.  On top of that, from the data that I've found, ESPN+ is much less lucrative on a per-subscriber basis than its cable TV counterpart, so converting to streaming is almost certainly not going to solve MASN's (or the Orioles') cash flow problems.

 

I think MASN probably needs to partner with a national media chain.  This likely means giving up some ownership stake, but it means that they get to serve their content on an alternative platform like a streaming service that's run by the national company.  This joint venture partnership situation is how a lot of teams manage their regional networks, and I think it makes a lot of sense.  The Dodgers can more or less go toe to toe with the Yankees financially despite the fact that they don't wholly own their regional network.  I think there's a good reason that other teams have been hesitant to create their own regional networks without the partnership of a larger media organization.  Unfortunately I think the creation of MASN was not nearly forward-thinking enough in the age of cord-cutting.

[spiritof66]

A lot of these posts make what I regard as the same mistake that I often see made: assuming that the Orioles, including MASN, is being run the way a normal business would be run. I don't think that's the case. 

MASN is majority-owned by the Orioles.  Apart from the rights fees paid to the Nats and O's, which are determined by arbitration (or, potentially, by agreement between the Nats and Orioles), its decisions are made by the Orioles -- that is, by Peter Angelos or whoever has the authority to act on his behalf, presumably John Angelos. I believe, as I have for years, that the Angeloses either plan to have the team put up for sale shortly after Peter Angelos's death or are uncertain whether they, as his heirs, will continue to own the team beyond a transition/sale negotiation period. There's a third possibility: that the Angeloses are certain, or at least very confident, that they will continue to own the team indefinitely. I think that's extremely unlikely. 

Those knowledgeable about the communications industry have been predicting the imminent decline or demise of the cable TV industry for at least 20-25 years, maybe more. That demise has occurred more slowly than many predicted. (I would guess there was a tendency to underestimate the inertia and resistance to change by those of my generation, who had gotten used to paying large cable bills and were unwilling to start down a new road.) But now the decline is here, and the movement toward demise seems to be progressing pretty quickly. As you would expect, regional cable sports networks like MASN are a prime victim. MASN, I would think, is especially vulnerable since (as I understand it) its programming other than the ballgames themselves has limited appeal. It would seem to be imperative for ML teams, and the RSNs that are owned by teams, to explore and implement alternative ways to get value for video broadcasts of games. Teams appear to be doing that in different ways, and at varying paces.

But from what I believe is the Orioles' perspective, it makes sense for them and MASN to continue with the status quo -- and that's pretty much what they appear to be doing. Here's why. The challenge created by the ongoing and irreversible decline in cable subscribers is a long-term problem for the Orioles (and for other ML teams). Meeting that challenge involves long-term predictions and planning, and making decisions about new ways to exploit video broadcast rights would be the beginning of a long-term solution. In my view, for the owner of the Orioles and the controlling owner of MASN -- and, it now seems, for ownership of the Nats -- there is no long term. These are difficult problems, requiring uncertain and potentially expensive decisions, that the Angeloses expect to, and very much want to, hand off to future owners, who are likely to have or be willing to tap much more expertise on these matters. The Orioles may have invested money in consultants to evaluate alternatives to the current MASN set-up; I doubt it, but they may have. But it seems that beyond that they're not willing to part with their own dollars to pursue those alternatives. (Moreover, they may think, and if so they may be right, that it would be more attractive to a prospective buyer not to have the team committed to decisions about these alternatives.

The Orioles and MASN are run in pretty much the same way: protect whatever revenue streams can be protected, even as they decrease with no promise of returning to their previous level without significant investment, and maximize the profits from those revenues by aggressively paring expenses. The Orioles (and indirectly MASN) are run by a CEO with minimal business experience so far as I'm aware, but even John Angelos is unlikely to be so obtuse that he believes it makes sense for the Orioles  financial health to stay the course with its broadcast rights as MASN viewership declines. I regard what is -- or, more accurately isn't -- happening with the Orioles' media rights as further confirmation that the Angeloses' short-term strategy is to hoard the revenues that are generated and that their long-term strategy is to leave to someone else the problems of building a contending team and pursuing alternatives to cable TV.

If I'm right, there's still the possibility that Peter Angelos, about to turn 93, will screw this up by living another 8 or 10 years. In that case, maybe the Orioles would  reconsider and run the team like a real major league franchise, including providing for new means of access to broadcasts of its games. Maybe.  

[Hallas]

55 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

A lot of these posts make what I regard as the same mistake that I often see made: assuming that the Orioles, including MASN, is being run the way a normal business would be run. I don't think that's the case. 

MASN is majority-owned by the Orioles.  Apart from the rights fees paid to the Nats and O's, which are determined by arbitration (or, potentially, by agreement between the Nats and Orioles), its decisions are made by the Orioles -- that is, by Peter Angelos or whoever has the authority to act on his behalf, presumably John Angelos. I believe, as I have for years, that the Angeloses either plan to have the team put up for sale shortly after Peter Angelos's death or are uncertain whether they, as his heirs, will continue to own the team beyond a transition/sale negotiation period. There's a third possibility: that the Angeloses are certain, or at least very confident, that they will continue to own the team indefinitely. I think that's extremely unlikely. 

Those knowledgeable about the communications industry have been predicting the imminent decline or demise of the cable TV industry for at least 20-25 years, maybe more. That demise has occurred more slowly than many predicted. (I would guess there was a tendency to underestimate the inertia and resistance to change by those of my generation, who had gotten used to paying large cable bills and were unwilling to start down a new road.) But now the decline is here, and the movement toward demise seems to be progressing pretty quickly. As you would expect, regional cable sports networks like MASN are a prime victim. MASN, I would think, is especially vulnerable since (as I understand it) its programming other than the ballgames themselves has limited appeal. It would seem to be imperative for ML teams, and the RSNs that are owned by teams, to explore and implement alternative ways to get value for video broadcasts of games. Teams appear to be doing that in different ways, and at varying paces.

But from what I believe is the Orioles' perspective, it makes sense for them and MASN to continue with the status quo -- and that's pretty much what they appear to be doing. Here's why. The challenge created by the ongoing and irreversible decline in cable subscribers is a long-term problem for the Orioles (and for other ML teams). Meeting that challenge involves long-term predictions and planning, and making decisions about new ways to exploit video broadcast rights would be the beginning of a long-term solution. In my view, for the owner of the Orioles and the controlling owner of MASN -- and, it now seems, for ownership of the Nats -- there is no long term. These are difficult problems, requiring uncertain and potentially expensive decisions, that the Angeloses expect to, and very much want to, hand off to future owners, who are likely to have or be willing to tap much more expertise on these matters. The Orioles may have invested money in consultants to evaluate alternatives to the current MASN set-up; I doubt it, but they may have. But it seems that beyond that they're not willing to part with their own dollars to pursue those alternatives. (Moreover, they may think, and if so they may be right, that it would be more attractive to a prospective buyer not to have the team committed to decisions about these alternatives.

The Orioles and MASN are run in pretty much the same way: protect whatever revenue streams can be protected, even as they decrease with no promise of returning to their previous level without significant investment, and maximize the profits from those revenues by aggressively paring expenses. The Orioles (and indirectly MASN) are run by a CEO with minimal business experience so far as I'm aware, but even John Angelos is unlikely to be so obtuse that he believes it makes sense for the Orioles  financial health to stay the course with its broadcast rights as MASN viewership declines. I regard what is -- or, more accurately isn't -- happening with the Orioles' media rights as further confirmation that the Angeloses' short-term strategy is to hoard the revenues that are generated and that their long-term strategy is to leave to someone else the problems of building a contending team and pursuing alternatives to cable TV.

If I'm right, there's still the possibility that Peter Angelos, about to turn 93, will screw this up by living another 8 or 10 years. In that case, maybe the Orioles would  reconsider and run the team like a real major league franchise, including providing for new means of access to broadcasts of its games. Maybe.  

 

On the topic of the cable industry I no longer think it will be killed completely.  But it's going to fundamentally change because of pressure from a-la-carte streaming.  The pricing for a la carte has increased to the point where you're basically spending the same amount of money either way now.

 

The fact that you can get de facto cable services over the internet (e.g. youtube tv) extends a pretty long lifeline for traditional cable services.  It won't require the paradigm shift that a move toward streaming would.

[fansince1988]

6 hours ago, Frobby said:

Does this have something to do with MASN?

To my understanding, the 3.6 mm MASN subscribers includes the people who get it as part of their cable package.  As we know, there is no other way to get MASN in-market.   

You can get MASN/MASN2 in-market via DirectTV Stream without a cable tv package, or Direct TV subscription. It's not  cheap, about $90 a month. 

https://www.directv.com/stream/

[SCJeff]

I wonder if this has more to do with cord cutting than MASN, not that they are doing themselves any favors. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, SCJeff said:

I wonder if this has more to do with cord cutting than MASN, not that they are doing themselves any favors. 

Exactly.

[Frobby]

17 minutes ago, SCJeff said:

I wonder if this has more to do with cord cutting than MASN, not that they are doing themselves any favors. 

I expect so.  It’s a mega-trend.  According to the report below, households subscribing to cable have dropped from 100 mm to 68 mm since 2014.  I’m sure the percentage drop is higher in certain regions and certain cable providers than others.   https://www.statista.com/statistics/251268/number-of-pay-tv-households-in-the-us/

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Frobby said:

I expect so.  It’s a mega-trend.  According to the report below, households subscribing to cable have dropped from 100 mm to 68 mm since 2014.  I’m sure the percentage drop is higher in certain regions and certain cable providers than others.   https://www.statista.com/statistics/251268/number-of-pay-tv-households-in-the-us/

What is interesting to me is that, at least down here, the response of the cable companies.

I would think they would try and come up with more affordable options and make themselves more attractive to potential subscribers.  I think this approach, when streaming is becoming increasingly complex and expensive, could work. 

Instead they have doubled down on their remaining client base, apparently under the opinion that everyone that was willing and capable of leaving have already left and that their best course of action is to raise prices and soak those that remain.

[eddie83]

11 hours 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.

 

Have to think all RSN’s are losing subs. People ditching cable/satellite and Dish Network no longer has RSN’s. 
 

 

I should have read next page. I see this was addressed….

[OriolesMagic83]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

I expect so.  It’s a mega-trend.  According to the report below, households subscribing to cable have dropped from 100 mm to 68 mm since 2014.  I’m sure the percentage drop is higher in certain regions and certain cable providers than others.   https://www.statista.com/statistics/251268/number-of-pay-tv-households-in-the-us/

Wow maybe RSNs are going the way of dinosaurs.  I'm sure the O's will be the last to adapt.

[eddie83]

2 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Wow maybe RSNs are going the way of dinosaurs.  I'm sure the O's will be the last to adapt.

I don’t buy that. Where else would regular season MLB, NBA and NHL games air?