ESPN Surveys Itself For Liberal Bias

ESPN remains desperate to counter the growing Internet thinking that their subscriber base tanking is due in good measure to the liberal political bias of their TV content. Everybody in the industry understands ESPN’s losses have far more to do with having overbid on multiple sports league coverage and attempting to pass their higher costs along to cable companies and subscribers. But this liberal bias label seems to have stuck in the craw of the Disney/ABC collective.

So, ESPN conducted an audience survey. All networks do. Most don’t openly publish their customer survey data to support their argument with Internet commenters. The survey was performed by a legit third party agency, so presume the results are fairly objective. The stats showed that thirty-percent of ESPN viewers felt there was a political bias to the ESPN coverage; of those, two-thirds felt that bias skewed liberal. So, about twenty-percent of ESPN viewers noted a liberal bias in the coverage. Which would seem to validate the Internet troll understanding. Though ESPN spun it entirely different when reporting the results.

Whether or not anybody bitching about liberal bias have stopped watching ESPN remains unclear. You’d think not. Especially for major sports event coverage. Who’s not watching the NBA playoffs because ESPN gave Caitlyn Jenner the Arthur Ashe Courage Award in exchange for a Diane Sawyer first-tranny ABC TV exclusive? You may skip cable news coverage based on political affiliation. Nobody’s missing The Warriors because they hate Hillary.

The liberal bias argument seems moot at this point. Almost the entirety of corporate owned media runs a liberal bias. Those that don’t clearly do the exact opposite in an equally obvious manner. The more relevant point is whether or not you can ignore it to get to the same programming you used to receive without it. Probably most people can. Some can’t.

Higher prices are a dramatically more germane to the consumer decision. Also, ten minutes of Sports Center highlights masquerading as an hour long program. When Lena Dunham’s guest Snapping on the masculine oppression of contact sports, I’ll cut the cord.