The Final Death Knell For ESPN Mobile

We know you don't need us to occasionally remind you just how much of a disaster ESPN Mobile has been for the Worldwide Leader ... but we thought we'd go ahead and try anyway.

Merril Lynch, a company that tends not to mince words when it comes to capital, has officially wrote that Disney should "pull the plug" on ESPN Mobile in a note to investors. Here's the money paragraph:

[The analysts] now estimate that ESPN Mobile will lure a mere 30,000 subscribers over the course of this financial year, well below their original estimate of 240,000. Along with the losses generated by a second Disney-branded phone service, ML expects that the Mouse will lose $135 million on its experiment in FY06.

So there you go. We probably don't need to say any more about this: It should be covered now.

Merrill Lynch: Time To Pull Plug On ESPN Mobile [MediaWeek]