For a long time, a key rationale for ESPN’s industry-leading per-subscriber fee ($9.42 for the main network as of August) was “It’s the only place to watch Monday Night Football .” That is becoming increasingly less true. The company has made more and more MNF broadcasts (and/or alternate broadcasts like the ManningCast) also available on their over-the-top streaming service ESPN+ in recent years, and even more importantly, they’ve dramatically ramped up the games available on sister broadcast network ABC.
That particularly happened last year, where 10 additional regular-season simulcasts (beyond five planned simulcasts, two planned exclusive games, and two planned playoff simulcasts) were added to ABC mid-September in what was billed as a one-off move given writers’ and actors’ strike impacts. The added reach of broadcast television for those games led to dramatic MNF ratings increases . But the move also ticked off other networks who were concerned about the boost this gave ABC relative to them, plus multichannel video programming distributors (cable, satellite, and virtual MVPD providers), who wondered why they were charging customers so much for ESPN given that some of the network’s most-vaunted content was suddenly available over the air for free with an antenna. (Or for a different per-subscriber retransmission fee in a MVPD package.)
Amidst all that, ESPN/ABC parent Disney looked to be much more cautious with simulcasts this season. With those strikes wrapped up later last fall, they weren’t available as an excuse any more. And ESPN announced in May that ABC would have just three exclusive games and just six simulcasts during the regular season before playoff simulcasts; that was still much more than had often been seen, part of the increased rights for ABC in the latest round of media deals, but it was way down from 2023.
But a sudden midseason boost of ABC simulcasts has now happened again. That came with Disney announcing Friday they’re adding six more MNF simulcasts to the network. Here’s more on that from Brian Steinberg at Variety :
The company intends to simulcast six broadcasts of “Monday Night Football,” typically a mainstay of ESPN, on the ABC broadcast network, a maneuver that is likely to generate broader viewership of the games and deliver bigger ratings than the outlet’s usual Monday night fare, which had been expected to consist of reality programming and game shows, including “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.” Even a Wednesday-night offering, “Scamanda,” will be moved.
…The NFL approved of the scheduling changes, which are only in effect for the current TV season.
…ABC had put significant effort into promoting the series it was set to debut, including “Scamanda,” a Wednesday-night series based on a true-crime podcast. The decision will also push back some of the last episodes of “Wheel of Fortune” that feature longtime host Pat Sajak, who recently stepped down from the role.
Ratings and audience were two key factors playing a role in the decision, according to people familiar with the matter
There is some logic for the NFL in approving this; yes, there will absolutely be larger ratings and audience from the increased reach of ABC. (MNF ratings had been fine this year, even for ESPN-alone games, but there’s a big difference in “fine for ESPN” and what can be drawn with the ESPN/ABC combo.) And this avoids a potential negative story of “MNF ratings down year over year,” and attempts to tie that to other things such as the presidential election even if it was mostly about a smaller number of simulcasts.
And there’s absolutely logic for Disney in wanting this. It’s unfortunate for some of their other programming, including Scamanda , but NFL games tend to be a much bigger draw than anything else. (And last year’s extensive simulcasts and other ESPN on ABC sports programming were a big part of ABC passing Fox in total audience for third amongst broadcast networks, with a previous lack of sports programming due to Disney putting it all on ESPN a huge part of why ABC was fourth of the four major broadcast networks for so much of the last decades.)
But this has some negatives for a lot of other people. To start with, there are the other networks broadcasting the NFL (CBS, Fox, NBC/Peacock, Amazon, and Netflix), who complained about this and its impact on their remaining NFL ad inventory (not sold during upfronts earlier this year.) John Ourand spotlighted that last year on his podcast with Andrew Marchand:
“Most of the broadcasters are ‘furious….at the NFL for simulcasting Monday Night Football on ABC. Because it’s on ABC, they’re getting a bigger audience and now everybody’s running around trying to sell ads in what they call the scatter market. …Every single one of the broadcast networks is lobbying the NFL, saying ‘This simulcast on ABC, it better be a one-year deal.'”
It turns out it was not. And that also has implications for the MVPDs, including ones like Charter and DirecTV that just resolved (last year and this year respectively) intense carriage disputes with Disney, partly over ESPN. All of a sudden, six of the high-profile ESPN-exclusive NFL contests they were promised as part of that giant per-subscriber fee are now available on over-the-air TV. So that’s less than ideal for them.
The big question out of this move is if it will really be the “only in effect for the current TV season” claimed here. That was claimed last year as well, and with much more notable extenuating circumstances due to the strikes. This feels like it might be much more of a new normal.
Of course, more broadcast TV games will see a boost in NFL ratings. And this fits with wider Disney plans and trends of utilizing ABC more for sports , and the wider industry-wide shift of embracing broadcast and streaming rather than cable. And this also fits with the other trend of sports being one of the main things that still works on broadcast TV.
But this kind of late-breaking shift is unfortunate for competing NFL broadcasters, as there’s now a lot of further “NFL game on broadcast TV” inventory out there. And it’s unfortunate for MVPDs that paid for exclusive ESPN content, only for that content to again somehow be not as exclusive. The dead speak , the galaxy is again receiving mysterious simulcasts, and it may not be just for this year.
[ Variety ]
The post Somehow, six more Monday Night Football simulcasts returned to ABC appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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