The Walt Disney Company is a corporate megapower. Disney has its mouse paws in almost everything, so when people who are outraged over Disney taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air talk about a boycott, there are a few things that need to be discussed.
A boycott of all of Disney isn’t likely to go anywhere, because Disney’s Kimmel decision wasn’t financial. Disney willingly surrendered one of their top programs without much consideration for what it would cost them. Kimmel was averaging 1.77 million viewers a night in the last quarter. There is nothing that ABC can put on in his place that will bring in the same or more viewers.
Disney knew this and axed Kimmel anyway.
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The company could do so because they are massive and has plenty of other revenue sources. Since people would have to boycott Marvel, Star Wars, the Muppets, ABC, Hulu, and Pixar, just to name a few entertainment brands, Disney doesn’t worry much about overall boycotts.
However, Disney has a four-letter weakness named ESPN. The sports network has massive multibillion-dollar deals with the NCAA for basketball and football, and the NFL, among others.
ESPN is the secret revenue driver for Disney through television provider carriage fees.
A carriage fee is a monthly fee paid to a network by every satellite and cable subscriber. If you get your TV from a service like YouTubeTV, you also pay a carriage fee, but it has been speculated that carriage fees for digital TV are much lower than traditional cable and satellite. It is speculated that because fee deals are confidential, no one knows how much subscribers are paying for ESPN.
By the way, even if you never watch ESPN, if you are subscribing to a monthly TV service, you are still paying Disney whether you know it or not.
Every once in a while, the public gets a number. In 2022, Disney disclosed to shareholders that it makes more money from carriage fees for ESPN ($10 billion) than it does for the entire entertainment division.
ESPN’s carriage fees are the Disney cash cow, and they are also the place where YOU can most effectively protest the cave to Trump on Jimmy Kimmel.
If you have cable or satellite, cut the cord. If you don’t want to cancel your service, call your provider and ask to be moved to a package that doesn’t include ESPN. If they don’t have a package that doesn’t include ESPN, you may have to decide whether or not to cut the cord.
Disney makes more money from carriage fees for ESPN than they make from advertising, which is why a traditional boycott would not be effective.
If you want to let Disney know that you won’t support a company that caves to Trump, follow the money, and stop subsidizing ESPN with expensive carriage fees.
Have you cut the cord, or will you pledge not to fund Disney through ESPN carriage fees? Share your thoughts in the comments below.