ESPN Experiences Dramatic Shift In Political Affiliation Of Viewers Prior To Layoffs

Chicks With Dicks

From Ace of Spades:

As soon as the story broke (that ESPN was laying-off 100 on-air personalities), two competing narratives emerged. The left argued that ESPNs declining viewership has nothing to do with its leftward programming shift and everything to do with cable cutting, while the right argued that ESPNs decline is due to conservative sports fans tuning them out. 

Deep Root Analytics, a company specializing in analyzing local TV viewer-ship, dug into some of its numbers to see if there's any merit to the latter argument. What they found is stunning. Specifically, in 2015, the ESPN audience on average skewed Republican across all dayparts, ranging from 12% more Republican (Early News, Late Fringe, Overnight) to 21% more Republican than Democratic (Early Morning). 

In 2016, every daypart on ESPN became less conservative, with Daytime being only 2% more Republican than Democratic, while Late Fringe and Overnight programming became 10% and 12% more Democratic than Republican – a 22 and 28 point shift, respectively. 

The same is true across other ESPN properties. 

ESPN2 skewed Republican across most dayparts in 2015; in 2016 all day parts skewed Democratic. 

Every daypart also switched on ESPN News from 2015 to 2016. That's a 22% and 28% shift in viewer political affiliation in a single year. . 

While it's true that cable cutting is largely to blame for ESPN's declining viewership, these numbers can't be ignored.