If they could get people to give up $20 in exchange for ESPN and ABC Sports that is the best deal they could possibly make. Most of YouTubeTV's customers pay for the sports package. They could get the other content somewhere else for less. YouTubeTV is hoping that they can stave off the mass exodus as people realize that they won't be able to watch the games that they signed up for, and that their cable TV replacement is basically worthless.

You have this almost completely backwards. Sports fans currently subsidize scripted television to an almost outrageous extent. I used to work for Sling. Disney doesn't have to push ESPN and ABC Sports on the providers. It has to convince them to carry (and pay for) the rest of the channels. If sports fans could get access to the games that they wanted without having to pay for scripted television scripted television as we know it would disappear overnight. What we would be left with is the sort of thing that is currently available on Youtube.

As an example, Apple has spent over $20 billion on content over the last 6 years. Amazon Prime, on the other hand, spends just over $1 billion a year for Thursday Night Football. That's basically the worst possible NFL football game, and it still regularly has about half as many concurrent viewers as Apple TV has total subscribers. That's basically the case across the board. Sports is why YouTubeTV currently costs about 4 times as much per month as the most expensive Netflix package or 5 times what Disney+ costs. Sports fans are willing to pay for their television in a way that other viewers simply aren't willing to do. Disney and the other networks are doing their best to keep sports tied to the rest of their empires. It will be interesting to see how things end up.

For most people paying for live television ESPN (and ABC Sports) is the part that they actually want. That's why these negotiations always happen during Football season. Disney is trying to get YouTubeTV to pay for a bunch of channels whose viewership drops every year and they use the access to the live sporting events that people care about as a club.

The DVR revolution was a huge deal, and it also created a split between scripted and unscripted television. Once DVRs came out they quickly became a very popular way to watch scripted television. Since you were already time shifting your programs, it made sense to also skip over the ads. Live sports (and news), on the other hand tend to be watched live. People might wander off to get a snack when the commercials come on, but they rarely miss all of the commercials. Some sports fans will record a game and watch it later, but in those cases where they can't watch the game they mostly just watch the highlights. This is so popular that highlight news shows (with advertisements that generally don't get skipped, or are embedded in the content) are basically the most popular type of news.

Heck, for many sports fans the ads are basically part of the experience. They tune in early for pre-show events where there is nothing but advertisements. The talking heads either promote later shows, or they do product placement spots literally for hours.

Viewers of scripted shows, on the other hand, often go to great lengths to skip the ads. They set up VCRs and later Tivos and other DVRs. They bought (or rented and ripped) DVDs so they could own a pristine copy. Heck, as you know that's literally how Netflix started their business.

That's why Hollywood complained (at every step) about these technologies, while the sports people largely didn't care. They worked for the same companies, but their realities were very different. Moving into the modern era it is becoming more and more clear that sports fans have been subsidizing other television fans for decades. As the needs and wants of these two groups grow further and further apart expect interesting things to happen.

Right now Disney capitalizes with every negotiation on the fact that many YouTubeTV subscribers are actually sports television subscribers looking for a reliable way to ESPN and ABC Sports. If they can't watch ESPN on Saturday and miss their alma mater play the big game they aren't going to be mollified with a $20 on their bill. They are going to cancel. So the average sports consumer pays for hundreds of channels that they never use, and their money pays for 90% of the television that gets produced, despite the fact that they don't watch it. As this disconnect becomes more and more apparent expect Hollywood to have an even harder time funding the creation of content.

I definitely tend to speak in hyperbole. I actually appreciate that reminder. That sort of thing really doesn't help make any of my points.

The reality is that there are lots of people that have televisions on all day long, and there are plenty of businesses (for example restaurants) where they might have multiple televisions on all day long. Television is still a very powerful way to reach a fairly wide audience, even if live television has fallen a long. Heck, much of the content that gets the most views on platforms like YouTube also tend to be established television shows. So even if people aren't watching the content live it is still getting watched in a timely manner. And to advertisers (and viewers) that definitely matters.

My point is that most people, especially most people on /., have absolutely no idea how much sports carries our current television programming. Netflix was originally able to buy rights to so much VOD (video on demand) content in the early days because no one thought that it had any value. Streaming pre-recorded shows is technically easy, and even in the era of cable there were only so many channels that were feasible. Netflix showed that you could turn this into a business, if you had a big enough portfolio. Even still a premium Netflix package costs $25, and you probably get it subsidized with your phone carrier. A cable subscription, with live television, and Disney pushing up the fees is at least double that. If you want ESPN it's probably closer to triple that.

Not only are people willing to pay money for sports, but sporting events have a proven track record of putting people in seats, and even keeping them there during commercials. That's why Superbowl ads are so ridiculously expensive. Advertisers realized that people were actually watching the spots during the games.

To give you an example of how skewed the numbers are individual NFL football games regularly have more viewers than Apple TV has subscribers, and they air three to four competing NFL games basically every Sunday. We think of television in terms of Hollywood and the shows that they produce, but the reality is that most of the television that we watch is just filler for the next sporting event. Since the commercialiation of television these two types of shows have worked together to build the market that collectively we call "television," and serials got most of the credit for the growth. Hollywood has always been very good at self-promotion. However, it has always been live sports that has had the largest audiences. People come together to watch Superbowls, Olympics, etc. As our modern way of watching increasingly divides live television from scripted television we are likely going to see far less money going towards scripted television. My Apple TV is germane. Apple has spent billions of dollars trying to create a scripted television service that people will pay money for, with very limited success. Amazon Prime did far better by paying $1 Billion a year for Thursday Night Football.

If you really like scripted television, you might want to consider paying more for subscriptions to some of Hollywood's services. Personally, I like watching people restore old sailboats. That's pretty niche, but in a world where YouTube has made publishing content so inexpensive there are content providers that apparently can make a living that way. So I tend to agree with your opinion that it is fun to watch evil tear away at evil.

Tesla's battery tech advancements were minor and mostly not their doing. "His" moving space travel forwards would do better off without him at this point. His supporting Trump has done more damage than he's done good. The EV revolution might have happened slightly later without him, but Trump might well have not become president at all, so he's especially done more harm than good to America.

If the best you can do is provide non-credible citations, you're fuckin' A right there.

The only way you know you experienced something is your memory of it. If this doesn't fill in the blanks for you then please, please, pretty fucking please, never waste my time with your replies again.

We amended it to allow slavery so what you're doing right now is defending slavery. You want to back up and take another run at this without your dick hanging out of your pants?

Cop said he thought you might have done it is not a meaningful standard. TREAD HARDER DADDY!

Disney does this every time it negotiates its contract, and it is always during Football season. I used to work for Sling they did this to us twice while I worked there.

This is how live television actually works these days. Disney has a pile of channels that they can't hardly give away. Remember, we aren't talking about shows (although most shows don't matter either). We are talking about channels. When was the last time you channel surfed trying to find something on the air? My guess is that it was decades ago. Well, all those channels still exist, and the live television providers still pretend that someone cares whether re-runs of Wizard of Waverly Place is playing on whatever channel reruns of that show play on these days.

It's 2025. Sane people watch pre-recorded stuff when they have time. The industry calls that Video on Demand. They stream these shows from someone that let's them watch when they want to watch, and that keeps track of where they are when the stop. They don't tune in every day at 3:30 PM and watch reruns of their favorite show. If you are old enough, like me, you probably remember sitting down with all of your friends every week to watch the newest episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, or whatever. Remember how terrible that was. You had to make an appointment to watch television or you missed an episode and you couldn't watch it until it was in re-runs.

Well, those days are so dead no one even mourns them any more.

Disney knows this, and YouTubeTV knows this as well. Everyone involved in live television knows this. The only reason that people even have live television subscriptions is so that they can watch sports while the game is happening live. And in the United States that means that mostly boils down to watching football.

So every few years each of the live television companies (all of the cable companies, essentially) have to renegotiate with Disney. Every year the story is precisely the same. Viewership on everyone's live channels is down at least 25%. The market is shedding customers like crazy. Disney wants to raise prices at least 30%, and they also want the companies to carry (and pay for) a wide array of channels that absolutely no one watches. Meanwhile, the broadcasters just wants access to ESPN and ABC Sports. The reason that people pay money for YouTubeTV is that want to be able to watch the live sports content, and to a lesser extent the live news. Even that basically amounts to the sports news. They want to watch the College football games on Saturday, and the NFL games on Sunday. They want to be able to have a baseball game playing in the background, or catch their NBA team play. They want to hear the talking heads talk about sports, and they want to see the highlights. To accomplish this they are willing to pay approximately 4 times the cost of the fanciest Netflix subscription, maybe more if they have to rush out and sign up for another service because YouTubeTV no longer has access to ESPN and ABC Sports.

Before you think that YouTubeTV is probably gouging their customers you probably should know that YouTubeTV almost certainly pays basically every penny that their customers pay them directly to the content providers like Disney. All of the providers do this, but Disney is by far the worst. In Disney's defense they have the content that people actually want to see. Sling used the entirety of the proceeds from its subscribers to pay the various provider fees, and I actually suspect that YouTubeTV was subsidizing its customers. With the packages that they carry I suspect that they sold packages at a loss. So when Disney comes back and asks for more, with the overall pie shrinking every year. It is no wonder that YouTubeTV opted to turn out the lights.

One thing is certain, this definitely isn't about Jimmy Kimmel. That sort of content has already been moved irrevocably to normal YouTube. Absolutely no one is watching it on live television. Jimmy's return had just over 6 million viewers and was basically a miracle. Now it is back to around 1 million viewers and it probably gets more actual views from the spots on YouTube than on all of the cable providers combined. To give you a frame of reference, the worst NFL games are the Thursday Night Football games and even poor outings have 14 million viewers.

You said "having an entire constitution written around that basic premise"

Now you're saying "You were dead wrong to assume I'm not well aware of the failures you brought up"

Why did you say the first thing if you're aware it was complete. fucking. bullshit?

"guess nobody in gunfuckmerica will actually resist tyranny"

Correct. I used to be a fairly strong 2A supporter but I no longer believe in it because it's clear that it doesn't help resist tyranny, because the people with the most guns literally love tyranny.

"Where on earth is congress?"

Adjourned by Trump's little Johnson to avoid swearing in Adelita Grijalva because she's the last vote needed to force the release of the Epstein files which were previously sealed by a judge so that the Democrats couldn't release them when they controlled the government, because maggots love pedos.

Anyone blaming the shutdown on anything else has not just lost the plot, they forgot what was happening last fucking week, and proven that they are mentally incompetent to say anything of value on the subject. And/or, of course, that their systems should be checked for CP.

"anyone who voted to give away their rights in order to kick out immigrants or just plain be mean to them isn't going to read this thread."

Yes, they will. They will be proud to be hurting the people they are hurting and they have zero awareness that they will get a turn as well. Then they will mock you and accuse you of being a troll, a bot, or both, and without any irony whatsoever. How long have you been here? You should know how these reprobates work by now.