• Starting next fall, you'll be able to watch ESPN without paying for other cable channels.
• ESPN hasn't said how much its new streaming service will cost. Analysts think it might go for about $25 a month.
• ESPN isn't sure how many takers the new service will have. It's hoping a new ad campaign will prime the pump.

If you pay attention to the media business, you know that ESPN is going to cut the cord next year. Disney's sports channel is finally going to offer TV viewers a chance to subscribe to ESPN as a stand-alone streaming service, like Netflix or Max.

But ESPN needs to reach a much bigger audience than people who pay attention to the media business if this thing is going to work.

So here's a new ad that's supposed to "set the stage for ESPN's upcoming chapter," per the company's press release. It's going to start airing on Christmas.

This one isn't for me. But I'm not a professional ad critic. And lots of times, the ad campaigns that ad critics swoon over don't really move the needle, so who knows?

But I am old, and I remember the 1990s, when ESPN's SportsCenter was the center of the sports universe. And the winking, mockumentary spots it ran all the time made you feel like you weren't wasting your time watching sports. Sports were fun, but also funny, and you were in on the joke, too.

Anyway. Things are different now. Let's look ahead to the future. Specifically next fall, when what ESPN refers to as "Flagship" is supposed to launch. (This is different than the ESPN+ service it already sells, which shows you stuff that's not on ESPN; Flagship will be a streamed version of all the stuff that's on "real" ESPN.) How much will it cost, and how many people will sign up?

The company has yet to reveal pricing, or audience projections, so outside estimates can vary wildly.

MoffettNathanson analyst Rob Fishman thinks ESPN will sell Flagship for about $25 a month, and projects modest pickup at first: 1 million paid subscribers by the end of 2026, 1.5 million in 2027, and 3 million by 2030.

Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall is way more bullish. He thinks ESPN will sell Flagship for $23 a month, and projects 12 million subscribers in 2027, and 17 million by 2030.

That big spread reflects the uncertainty I've heard coming from Disney and ESPN insiders themselves. They simply don't know how many people will want to pay for a service that gives them a lot of sports, but not all the sports on TV. And they also don't know if the people who do pay are going to be cable TV subscribers who are trading down from a big bundle of channels — or if they will be cord-cutters/cord-nevers who aren't paying for cable in the first place.

That uncertainty was part of the rationale for ESPN's participation in Venu, the "Hulu for sports" streaming service that was going to cost $43 a month, and would include ESPN and other Disney channels like ABC, as well as sports and non-sports programming from Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. The thinking/hope was that between traditional TV, the stand-alone streamer, and the joint venture, ESPN would end up capturing whatever audience wanted to pay for sports, no matter how they wanted to pay for it.

Venu was supposed to have launched already, but has been held up by an antitrust legal challenge; a trial is supposed to get underway in early January. So if Disney and its partners win, ESPN could find itself launching two different streamers next year.

• YouTube TV will cost close to $83 a month after a just-announced price hike.
• That's a far cry from the $35 a month it was when it launched in 2017.
• However, YouTube TV is arguably still attractive relative to some other pay-TV offerings.

The price of YouTube TV is going up again — and cord-cutters around the internet are up in arms.

Google announced Thursday that the cost of its popular pay-TV service is now $82.99 a month for new users, up from $72.99. Existing users will see the price hike start on January 13, so some might not pay more until February.

The last time the service raised prices was in March 2023.

YouTube TV is now roughly in line with a typical pay-TV bundle and will cost exactly as much as rival service Hulu + Live TV, which includes ad-supported versions of Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+.

YouTube TV's price has grown dramatically in the nearly eight years since it launched, though that's largely because the service was underpriced at first relative to its offering.

Before this hike, YouTube TV was generally cheaper than many rival streaming TV packages from competitors such as Hulu + Live TV, Fubo TV, Spectrum, and DirecTV. (Many pay-TV services have a variety of plans, so it can be difficult to truly compare apples to apples, however.)

YouTube TV also has a slick interface that appeals to many cord-cutters.

These factors helped YouTube TV grow to 8 million customers (as of earlier this year) and far outpace its digital rivals.

Although YouTube TV's price growth has been eye-popping, the price of pay-TV services — from cable to satellite to streamers — has generally outpaced inflation, per data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That includes the largest inflation surge in decades.

As the cable bundle became more expensive, millions of households cut the cord. TV networks make less money when pay-TV subscriptions fall, so to keep investors happy, they've increased the amount they charge TV providers, who then pass those costs on to customers.

In other words, when fewer people pay for TV, the remaining subscribers pay more. That has created a flywheel effect, with customers fleeing the bundle even faster in favor of streaming services, social media, or other forms of entertainment.

When asked for comment, a YouTube TV spokesperson issued a statement that acknowledged this dynamic: "To keep up with the rising cost of content and the investments we make in the quality of our service, we are increasing our Base Plan price for YouTube TV from $72.99/month to $82.99/month."

Google may also have raised YouTube TV prices to help cover its investment in NFL Sunday Ticket. The tech giant won the right to distribute the premium out-of-market package starting in 2023 and priced it at $379 per season for YouTube TV customers and $479 for others. Even at those prices, media analysts at Morgan Stanley don't think the service is profitable.

Still, despite the price increase, YouTube TV can often be one of the better deals in town for those who want a large bundle of channels. And it has another thing going for it: It's easy to cancel and resubscribe to.

"We give all members the flexibility to cancel their membership at any time," the YouTube TV spokesperson said in their statement.