http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204083204577080793289112260.html?mod=ITP_marketplace_0

Cable TV honchos are angry that pricey ESPN fees are continuing to rise.

http://allthingsd.com/20120127/like-sports-on-cable-pay-up-dont-like-sports-on-cable-pay-up-anyway/

It’s been a couple years since we last took a detailed look at the way
your cable dollars get split up. Takeaway from our 2010 review: You
pay a whole lot of money for sports TV, whether you like it or not.
Let’s take another peek, courtesy of SNL Kagan and Barclays analyst
Anthony DiClemente, who has an updated list of wholesale prices by
channel* (the list on the right is for ad rates, which we can ignore
for the purposes of this story):
http://allthingsd.com/files/2012/01/cable_fees_2012.gif

Takeaway from today’s chart: Nothing has really changed — you’re still
paying a lot for sports, and you’re paying a lot for ESPN.

That’s why Disney’s sports channel is the most valuable asset on your
cable dial. And it’s also why you’ve been hearing increasing grumbling
— from both customers and ESPN’s non-sports cable competitors — about
ESPN’s drag on your cable bill. (We’ll talk to new ESPN boss John
Skipper about this topic next week at Dive Into Media.)

As I’ve noted before, the odds are that this doesn’t change anytime
soon: Disney and ESPN can charge that much because the cable guys,
like Comcast, think the programming is worth it to their customer
base. And they’re signing up long-term deals that will keep that fee
structure in place for the next decade.

But there is a chance that a “virtual” cable operator, using the Web,
decides to offer a package that doesn’t include ESPN. They could
either use that unspent money to lower customers’ bills, or plow it
into other programming.

Again, this will also mean that subscribers couldn’t get any Disney
programming, because Bob Iger has zero interest in splitting up the
bundle. But I know of a few folks who have at least contemplated the
idea.

So what about that “over the top” option, anyway? Some industry
observers, like BTIG’s Rich Greenfield, are sure that someone — Apple,
Google, Verizon, who knows — will offer one this year. Today,
Bernstein’s Craig Moffett has a long essay describing why that won’t
happen for a long time, if ever. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said
something similar this week, alluding to the fact that Microsoft has
reportedly bailed on its Web TV subscription plans.

*The 2012 chart omits regional cable channels, which is why Fox Sports
Net has disappeared in the new chart. I don’t know why the new one
includes outliers like 3net, a 3-D channel that isn’t widely available
(and/or relevant, as best I can tell).