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The Media Extinction Event

Clay Travis explains why ESPN is sinking fast, why the free ride that sports fans enjoyed at the expense of everyone else with a cable subscription has come to an end, and the inevitable implications for everyone in the media business

ESPN knows that their cable and satellite business is collapsing but, and this is key, they’ve also done the math and realize that streaming is going to destroy their existing cable business. Because, and this is what no one seems willing to say, ESPN doesn’t just have one bad business now — the cable and satellite bundle — they have the streaming business too, which is an even worse business. And, and this is very key, each business is accelerating the demise of the other. Streaming isn’t making ESPN stronger, it’s making ESPN weaker because it’s hastening the destruction of a profitable business — cable and satellite — for a money-losing business — streaming.

And that’s what many are still missing — as the cable and satellite bundle boat takes on water and sinks, the streaming bundle is also taking on water and sinking too. ESPN has tried to sell people on the idea that at the exact moment that the cable and satellite bundle collapses they are going to step to a brand new business, the streaming business, and it’s going to be a sturdy and successful lifeboat that carries them to richer waters.

But the reality is, streaming is a way worse business than the cable and satellite bundle. Because the only people who pay for ESPN will be sports fans. The free ride is over, your Aunt Gladys is never signing up and subsidizing your sports viewing again.

Let’s say ESPN makes $8 billion a year now in subscription fees. ($10 a month x 70 million subscribers they has before Charter cut this by 15 million). Toss in another two billion in advertising and let’s say ESPN presently nets around $10 billion a year. Okay, how many people will sign up for ESPN as a direct to consumer streaming service? If they could get 70 million subscribers we’d all have to pay $120 a year for ESPN streaming by itself. (This assumes advertising will still be the same, which it won’t, but let’s just be generous and pretend it will.) But, as I noted above, many of these people paying for ESPN now as part of their cable and satellite package never watch ESPN.

So how many people will actually subscribe to a direct to consumer ESPN streaming service? Turns out there are some early test cases.

The NFL Sunday Ticket is the most desirable direct to consumer product on the planet. Do you know how many households subscribe for NFL Sunday Ticket? Around three million.

Uh oh.

Wait a minute, you’re telling me that the NFL can only get around three million households to sign up for actual NFL games, all of the out of market games, in the entire country?

We’ve got a major math problem here for ESPN.

In other words, even if we’re generous and we assume all the other sports combined generate as much television interest as the NFL, we’re looking at a decline from 100 million at peak to six million. That’s a decline of 94 percent in households. In monetary terms, if we use a single-season, single-team MLB subscription as a stand-in for all other sports, that’s an 88 percent decline in revenue from $10 billion to $1.23 billion… with $45 billion in rights fees owed through 2027.

No wonder the Saudis are licking their lips and looking to buy up more sports leagues instead of teams. It also explains why Bob Iger is desperately casting around for anyone who wants to buy pieces of the collapsing Devil Mouse empire. But it’s not just Disney that is facing the precipice.

TNT, Turner, AMC, Nickelodeon, you name the channel, all of them are basically being held together by the cable bundle. And ESPN is the most important channel in the cable and satellite bundle, it’s the linchpin, the anchor store. ESPN is your neighborhood shopping mall’s anchor tenant — the Macy’s, the Nordstrom, the Dillard’s the JC Penny. When a mall’s anchor tenant leaves the mall is often dead for, the rest of the shopping mall collapses around it. That’s why the best analogy for ESPN isn’t Blockbuster, it’s Sears, a big mall anchor tenant that collapsed and went bankrupt.

Okay, if you’ve read to this point, you might be thinking, “This feels like it’s going to be really bad, Clay.”

Uh, yeah, it is, that’s why I called it a media extinction level event.

And yet, the alternative media will survive this unscathed, because we’re already accustomed to being entirely dependent upon our direct supporters. No free riders, no advertisers. And so, as it happens, the great media extinction may be the best possible thing for the future growth of Arkhaven and UATV.

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We See Too Much

Den Blonde Ulven performs an experiment on the size and shape of the Earth:

My father and I performed some optic experiments near Virginia Beach in Norfolk, Virginia. The goal of this event was to check the hypothesis: can objects be seen further than they should be able due to the curvature of the Earth?

We were standing on Ocean View Beach close to East Ocean View Beach- coordinates 36.933410, -76.201875. Three pieces of equipment were utilized- a Nikon P1000 camera, a tripod, and an SD memory card for the camera. This camera was capable of recording while shooting a video and simultaneously zooming in great distances. The P1000 is what captured the videos shown.

The weather was partly cloudy, no rain, and slightly hazy. These are not ideal conditions due to the haze. Yet even under these non-ideal conditions, objects that have been zoomed in upon are distinguishable.

We used a website to determine the location of cargo ships on a map in near real-time. This allowed us to estimate where the ships were. We then used a feature on Google Maps called “measure” to connect our location with the ships’. This gave us an approximate distance of which I estimate is accurate within a range of (+-)0.2 miles.

The obvious rebuttal, as DBU anticipates, is “refraction”. However, there is no extant model for refraction that is sufficient to account for the difference between what the curvature model predicts and the observable results obtained.

This does not suggest the Earth is flat. It does, however, suggest that the official story about the specific size and shape of the Earth is unsupported by the observable evidence.

Now, I am not a Flat Earther. Neither am I an Oblate Spheroidian. I have no dog in this hunt, except that it would not surprise me in the least to learn that the Official Story, once more, has been proven false. My fundamental position on such celestial matters can best be described as Holmesian to the core.

My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. “You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.” “To forget it!” “You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” “But the Solar System!” I protested. “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

That being said, I applaud those who do care about such things taking the time and effort to actually investigate for themselves the assertions of what is said to be science. It is telling, to me, that those who claim to be completely dedicated to science so often decry those who dare to engage in real scientody to replicate the current state of scientage.

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Losing Africa

The G20 has obviously been spooked by anti-colonial developments in Niger, Gabon, Burkina Faso, and Mali, to say nothing of the recent expansion of BRICS, as it has unexpectedly offered an invitation to the African Union that offers it equal status with the European Union.

Leaders of the G20 group of advanced economies have agreed to grant the African Union permanent membership of the organization, according to multiple media reports ahead of this week’s summit in New Delhi. The bloc of 55 African countries, which is currently classified as an “invited international organization” by the G20, would have the same status as the European Union within the group. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose nation currently holds the rotating G20 presidency, reportedly urged other leaders to accept the African Union into the group in a letter in June.

I very much doubt that allowing a toothless would-be superstate to have a very limited voice in the least of the globalists’ two public institutions is going to accomplish anything significant; how many of the 55 states that make up the bloc can actually be said to have “advanced economies”? By this expanded definition, who doesn’t have an advanced economy, Papua New Guinea and a small sovereign tribe of 37 people living in the Amazon?

However, it is another sign that the African front is in the process of opening, even though no one is actually fighting there yet. No doubt massive bribes will be offered in an attempt to keep the African governments in line, which will likely inspire additional military coups and more anti-corruption revolutions.

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A UATV Offer

It’s become clear that a lot of readers are very interested in contemplating what is likely to come next in WWIII. As a wargamer and game developer, it’s also of particular interest to me.

Here’s the deal. If there are 10 new Premium subscriptions or 25 new Basic subscriptions in the next 24 hours, I will broadcast a supersized Darkstream dedicated to reviewing in detail the 165-page report on the CSIS summary of the 24 US vs China wargames conducted in January, entitled The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan.

By the way, there are now 5,463 videos available on UATV, with 3-6 more being added every single day. The duplicate set of servers has already been installed at the European data center and is expected to go operational before the end of the month.

UPDATE: Apparently there is considerable interest in WWIII. The 24 hours aren’t even close to being up and BOTH targets were blown away. So it’s on. I’m up to page 30 already, and I’m also working on seeing if I can obtain the rules of the wargame. They’re not necessary for the detailed analysis as I should be able to glean their assumptions from the results, but I like to read wargame rules.

Also, in order to express my appreciation for the high degree of interest indicated and support provided, I’m going to add a second review of the CNAS wargame conducted in June 2022.

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An Exclusive Look

Bounding Into Comics has an exclusive first look at the second Chuck Dixon’s Conan novel, CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED, including several illustrations and a draft of the paperback cover, which is not the image below.

In my opinion, both Dixon’s text and Ademir’s artwork are even better than in the first paperback. Note that the current paperback editions of THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK CITADEL now include Ademir’s illustrations and incorporate the typo-fixes identified in the first edition.

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This is WWIII

Even the NATO forces are openly admitting it now.

The head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council has claimed a third world war is already underway, with the Moscow-Kiev conflict pulling in countries far beyond the region. Speaking at the Kiev Security Forum on Tuesday, Aleksey Danilov argued that NATO needs Ukraine as a member, as global turbulence is set to continue. “We’re going to strengthen the alliance,” he insisted.

“If somebody thinks that World War III hasn’t started then it’s a huge mistake. It has already begun. It had been underway in a hybrid period for some time and has now entered an active phase,” he said.

Sitting on stage beside former CIA Director General David Petraeus, Danilov said that “if somebody thinks that it [the conflict in Ukraine] is about settling the scores between Kiev and Moscow then it’s a mistake. Things are much more complicated.”

He’s not wrong. I pointed this out months ago. This was never about Putin, his ego, or the revival of the Soviet Union. Don’t forget that WWII started with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, seven years before the Austrian Anschluss and ten years before the USA got openly involved. Even though we didn’t realize it until 2022, WWIII began in 2014 with the Maiden Coup in Ukraine, and it won’t be surprising if, ten years later, the US military gets openly involved in 2024.

The African front has already been opened. The Asian front will open soon, probably next year. The only serious question that remains to be answered is if there will be an American front as well.

UPDATE: Speaking of the African Front.

The crumbling house of French colonialism faces another blow as Chad demands the withdrawal of French troops from the country. This push gained momentum after the unfortunate killing of a local resident by French soldiers, sparking protests against the French colonial presence.

Ironically, France had contemplated pulling its colonial troops out of Niger and into Chad in response to demands for a definitive withdrawal date from the Niger military. Now, it seems they barely had time to leave Niger before facing expulsion from Chad. This follows previous expulsions of the French from the Central African Republic, Mali, and Burkina Faso, with Niger, Gabon, and Chad lining up as potential next exits.

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Deep Pockets and Defamation

Elon Musk brings up the possibility of suing the ADL for defamation:

While the ADL is obviously vulnerable on the issue of defamation, and has previously lost defamation cases, I think Musk and many others would actually have a much stronger case concerning tortious interference. The ADL literally raises money on the basis of its successful interference in contracts between third parties to which it has no relation, and its entire modus operandi is based on tortious interference for the purposes of harming the party it is targeting.

And while defamation is extremely hard for a public figure to prove, tortious interference is usually an easily established matter of record. In the case of the ADL’s interference with X’s advertising contracts, all of the elements are observably there and could be easily proven using the communications between the ADL and the advertisers.

  • The existence of a contractual relationship or beneficial business relationship between two parties.
  • Knowledge of that relationship by a third party.
  • Intent of the third party to induce a party to the relationship to breach the relationship.
  • Lack of any privilege on the part of the third party to induce such a breach.
  • The contractual relationship is breached.
  • Damage to the party against whom the breach occurs.

If Musk actually follows through with his musings with a lawsuit for tortious interference, and if Facebook, which was also targeted by the ADL, followed suit, there is a very good chance that the ADL would be financially ruined. Which would be ironic, given how many other organizations and individuals it has attempted to ruin financially. #BantheADL

UPDATE: I am very skeptical that Musk is genuinely serious about this. Among other things, he hasn’t fired his ADL-friendly CEO, Linda Yaccarino, yet.

UPDATE: On the other hand, the mainstream media is already rushing to misdirect the public and provide cover for the ADL, which tends to suggest that they are afraid the threat is real.

It’s unclear what kind of communications Musk is referring to, but a successful defamation suit would require him to prove that the ADL has been making false claims about him and his company. Musk and X did not immediately respond to a question from NBC News as to whether a complaint had been drafted. The ADL told NBC News on Monday that as a matter of policy it does not comment on legal threats.

The ADL’s publicly shared research and its criticisms of antisemitism on Musk’s platform in recent months are grounded in evidence. In March, the group flagged specific examples of antisemitic hate speech and tropes, and it criticized X for failing to remove posts in accordance with X’s own policies that prohibit hateful conduct, threats or incitement to violence based on individual or group identities. And in May, the ADL posted a report that documented examples of how antisemitic harassment networks are flourishing on the platform. Some of the ADL’s methodology seems unclear to me, and the organization also has a history of sometimes defining antisemitism in ways that conflate it with anti-Zionism. But the ADL flagged persuasive examples in its posts, and anyone who spends time on X knows the site is brimming with hate speech directed at all kinds of minority communities. One might also note that in these posts and in its report, the ADL is not calling Musk or X itself antisemitic, but the group is critiquing the company for failing to take action against antisemitic speech. Musk said on Monday that he was “pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind.”

Musk’s decision to single out the ADL is odd. As I noted, the ADL is just one voice among scores of civil rights-oriented organizations, research groups and media commentators that have criticized Musk’s laissez-faire attitudes toward hate speech. That’s to say nothing of the possibility that advertisers may choose to pull back on their spending on a platform without any pressure from activist groups or critics, and simply out of the calculation that the platform might be risky for their reputation in the future.

The twisted logic of Elon Musk’s defamation threat against the Anti-Defamation League, MSNBC, 6 September 2023

Notice how there is no mention of tortious interference, and yet the last sentence is specifically phrased to provide a hypothetical defense against the possibility that X advertisers were contacted by the ADL and pressured to stop advertising on X. And it is those communications between the ADL and the advertisers it is believed to have pressured are presumably the kind of communications to which Musk was referring.

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Remember This Next Time

“In terms of the vaccine mandates, I acknowledge that it was a challenging time for people but they ultimately made their own choices. There was no compulsory vaccination. People made their own choices.”

  • New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins

This statement is sparking an amount of outrage, mostly among those who feel they were forced to get vaccinated, and while the outrage is understandable, the man is telling no more than the literal truth. Virtually no one was actually compelled to get vaccinated, as we were all presented with choices. To be threatened with the loss of one’s job, the inability to play a sport, to drink in a club, or to eat in a restaurant, the cancellation of one’s college acceptance or one’s travel plans, may be unpleasant, but it is still to be presented with a choice.

Many people, most people, made bad choices. They made what in retrospect look like very suboptimal and dangerous choices that prioritized their short-term preferences over their long-term health.

So remember this next time! Remember this when the new “mandates” are put in place. The choice is still going to be yours. Learn from the mistakes that were made last time, and remember, those who are putting you in this difficult position are going to point out after the fact that you were the one who made your choice.

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Let Experience Be Silent

When more relevant information gainsays its conclusions. Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former Commanding Officer of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, was certain that the British wunderpanzers were going to wreak havoc on the Russian lines back in June.

As a former tank commander, I can say one thing for certain: Putin’s demoralised conscripts are utterly unprepared for the shock action now hitting their lines. Ukrainian armoured formations are beginning to meet Russian forces in battle, and they are going to pulverise Russia’s defensive lines. I am confident for one simple reason: Ukraine will follow the Western ideology of manoeuvre warfare in a combined arms context, while the Russians will follow Soviet doctrine, relying on attrition and numbers. The Russians will find that the armour of Western tanks is far more resilient than flesh and bone, they will die in great numbers, and they will lose.

British-made tanks are about to sweep Putin’s conscripts aside, THE TELEGRAPH, 9 June 2023

Yeah, so, about that…

It turns out that attrition, numbers, and artillery trump propaganda and manoeuvre warfare. And apparently, the British are even more delusional about their tanks than they are about their chances of winning the World Cup. But like the World Cup, the 28 Challenger 2 tanks sent to Ukraine will not be coming home.

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