What's $25 Million Between Friends?

Leitch|published: Wed 17th May, 12:45 2006

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And you thought we were unduly picking on ESPN for the ESPN Mobile fiasco.

Mobile ESPN has lost $25M so far after launching a $30M ad campaign that included an ad on ABC's Super Bowl broadcast, according to Alice Cuneo of AD AGE. Disney President & CEO Robert Iger acknowledged, "Initial results were a little bit lower than we had hoped. But we have changed our pricing approach, we have strengthened and redirected our marketing, we're expanding our presence at retail." Ovum wireless analyst Roger Entner said that the $25M loss "would be considered 'normal' by carrier standards." Entner added, "I would rather expect that to increase with more customers coming on board, but to swing into profitability [within 2-3 years]"

This, of course, makes total sense, because a technology that already seemed outdated (not to mention, of course, unreasonably expensive) the day it came out should absolutely come around to profitability in two or three years. Technology tends to be nice enough not to change for large corporations looking to over-leverage a brand name.

Wait ... does this mean we have to watch those ads for the next two years?

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