12-12-2014, 04:43 PM
The only games I couldn't watch were brewer games due to blackout restrictions.
WGN No More?
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12-12-2014, 04:43 PM
The only games I couldn't watch were brewer games due to blackout restrictions.
12-12-2014, 05:29 PM
Quote:The WGN numbers are bullshit. They were not losing money. They are straight up lying.Waiting for the financial terms to come out might inform the deal better. Does the tweet say the deal IS worth 750 per or is it quoting "market value" to make a guess? To your point, WGN may not have been losing 200K per game, but it's hard to imagine they were profiting based on their ratings. The ratings don't come from them, keep in mind, so they're not lying about them. ABC7 might know WGN was overstating losses, totally agree that could be a part of it, but ABC7 is also a more watched station and have much more leverage with advertisers. But to put the ratings in perspective, less than 50K TV homes were watching those games. As an advertiser, how much would you pay to reach roughly 50 homes? Depending on when WGN did those deals and how they're structured, their situation may have been that bad. So what I mean is, say WGN9 is straight up telling the truth, part of the issue could be with their sales department lacking the type of sway ABC7 has for a variety of reasons, or WGN using a sales method more dependent on ratings, ie not packaging deals far in advance or allowing for adjusted rates based on performance, or advertisers could pull out, or deals were being chased long after ratings plummeted. ABC7 sounds like the top dog in the market, so they will be able to put together more favorable deals based on advertisers wanting to work with them and keep a good relationship re: other programming, not just the Cubs. Add to that, a game that would pull in 45K on Channel 9, might actually bring in 55 or 60K households on ABC7. It seems illogical, but it's not. Carriage and popularity of a network increase or decrease ratings significantly for the same programming.
12-12-2014, 05:30 PM
Quote:Yes, good point, the WCIU broadcasts were never part of it, so I assume neither will WLS, which means you get to know a lot of other team's announcers. For me though I like having the games on TV because I can record them and comfortably fast-forward. Has anyone used MLB.TV through something like a Roku or a Apple TV? I would try it via Roku this season to get the Cubs feed if it's easy to navigate through games, as I usually like to start a game an hour in or so to save time by fast forwarding through commercials and boring sections. </blockquote> I have a Roku and have MLBTV, it was great. You can start the games from the beginning or pick an inning to start at. It is nice being able to listen to our own announcers. I may be biased, but, there are a lot of teams out there that have awful announcers. Honestly, I would recommend MLBTV over EI. </blockquote> Perfect! I will make the switch this year. Thanks Kid and Runnys. Oh, can you fast forward easy as well? Like say through a pitchers at bat without jumping innings?
12-12-2014, 05:52 PM
Fast forward through a pitcher's AB? That an NL traitor you are.
I'll be doing MLBTV again. My only beef with it is the 30 to 45 second delay. That makes Twitter a problem at times, as I have two screens an always have Twitter open on a screen.
I hate my pretentious sounding username too.
12-12-2014, 07:56 PM
Good point. I rarely double screen a game because I so often am watching after they air. For me I have the opposite problem of having to avoid the score, so staying away from my phone during a game. I do though talk to family sometimes if I am watching live, so I could see that being an issue.
12-12-2014, 08:44 PM
Quote: The Cubs will never draw good ratings again until they start winning and/or signing expensive and mediocre, aging free agents.
12-12-2014, 08:55 PM
Quote: The Cubs will never draw good ratings again until they start winning and/or signing expensive and mediocre, aging free agents. </div> </blockquote> The cubs signed an expensive free agent and it led to big ratings, so... Remember when Baez first came up last season and the ratings spiked? I think that's when the purple line works well. To me this instance plays more into the thinking of we need big FA signings to draw attention/viewers. Personally I'm stoked for Lester, but damn, it's the Bryant call up that's going to have me glued to the set!
12-13-2014, 02:00 AM
Quote:Waiting for the financial terms to come out might inform the deal better. Does the tweet say the deal IS worth 750 per or is it quoting "market value" to make a guess? To your point, WGN may not have been losing 200K per game, but it's hard to imagine they were profiting based on their ratings. ESPN Chicago reports that sources say the deal actually is for $750K/game, thoroughly disproving both WGN's claims that they were only receiving $50K/game in revenue last season, and certain other arguments about the effect of recent years' ratings (I'm still not debating this again). Also, the Trib reports, as I had guessed, that most of the WLS games will be on the weekends to avoid disrupting the ABC television schedule.
This is not some silly theory that's unsupported and deserves being mocked by photos of Xena.
12-13-2014, 08:44 AM
I'm sure ESPN Chicago is loving this given their opportunity to cross-promote their sister station (ABC and ESPN are both owned by Disney). If the report about WLS weekend games is accurate, then my hope that WGN would get stuck with mostly the worst of the worst 45 games looks to be coming true.
12-13-2014, 10:26 AM
As long as the games are on on MLB.tv and called by Len and J.D. I don't care about the rest of it.
12-13-2014, 11:31 AM
Quote:As long as the games are on on MLB.tv and called by Len and J.D. I don't care about the rest of it.This is where I'm at too.
12-13-2014, 02:36 PM
Thanks for pointing this out, George Castle. Dick.
Quote:Cubs strike out on ABC 7 history
12-13-2014, 02:38 PM
Who gives a rat's ass? What a douche.
12-13-2014, 03:40 PM
There's one "glaring hole" in that story...and it has nothing to do with Theo no knowing that there was one year, 65 years ago, that WGN didn't televise Cubs game.
12-13-2014, 07:15 PM
Quote: ESPN Chicago reports that sources say the deal actually is for $750K/game, thoroughly disproving both WGN's claims that they were only receiving $50K/game in revenue last season, and certain other arguments about the effect of recent years' ratings (I'm still not debating this again). Also, the Trib reports, as I had guessed, that most of the WLS games will be on the weekends to avoid disrupting the ABC television schedule. </div> </blockquote> Oh, the Cubs got a huge money deal with a stake in ownership for a Cubs net post 2019? I totally missed that, sweet! Sarcasm aside, I thought trusting "sources" was dumb? I mean obviously the sources who know the dollar figure now are to be trusted, the ones saying the Cubs were weakened in negotiations by ratings, or talking about WGN losses are not, right? Regardless, this doesn't disprove WGN's claims thoroughly and it certainly doesn't disprove ratings hurt them in negotiations, it does the opposite. They wanted a much larger and complete long term deal and made that known, and every article about this 25 game deal mentions how they were hampered by ratings in negotiations. This is good, but it's not anything like what they were chasing. I got this wrong as I always predicted (or by the end at least held out hope) that the Cubs would still manage to get a big money deal now that would include all games together post 2019, so I find this money to be better obviously but a disappointment overall and I'm sure they do too. (Unless the rest of the games going are tied to someone who will partner post 2019 and we find that out next week. I still hold out hope I guess.) On the very bright side, if they do pull in 750 per for the other games at large as well (which I guess isn't likely but certainly possible) that would make for a very solid bump though until 2020. I just hoped we wouldn't need to wait and do this all again, particularly if the bubble does burst. Maybe even if it does, in 2019 the Cubs can be one of the first to take advantage of a new money stream involving online distribution. Or, maybe wealthy affiliates of the nets (OandOs) see a future in obtaining live sports and selling them to other broadcasters as well, as I'm guess ABC7 has the right to do that for the next 5 years? Do we know if they have resell rights outside the market? |
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