Comcast vs ESPN on skinny cable bundles


Peter Kafka for Re/Code

That theory gained more credence last month, when ESPN boss John Skipper said the sports programmer had seen subscriber losses in part because of "people trading down to lighter cable packages" that don't include his network.

Then yesterday, the picture got fuzzier, when the country's biggest pay TV provider indicated that it was getting people to pay for more, not less, TV.

During Comcast's* earnings call, cable boss Neil Smit told analysts that skinny bundles "are actually a very small percentage of our overall video customer base," and that 75 percent of the company's growth in video subscribers last quarter had come from people paying for "higher-end packages."

My question is how many people are paying more just to get a few channels that are only available on upper tier packages? And then, how long until those people decide their select channels aren't worth paying the for full bundle?

The so called skinny bundle would give customers options of which channels they'd like to have. It won't quite be a la carte, but should give consumers a lot more options rather than basically either no sports or a $60-$70 a month bill.