Disney-owned ESPN last year, the loss of 3 million users

Walt Disney (DIS) revealed that its ESPN Sports cable television network lost 3 million paying customers in the past year.

Disney submitted to regulators on Wednesday said in a statement of registration, for the fiscal year ended October 3, ESPN paid for 92 million in 2014 and 95 million in 2013 to 99 million. ESPN last fiscal year, the number of paying users has been reduced to the level of 10 years ago, which in 2006 paid-92 million users.

In August, Disney CEO Robert-Robert Iger (Robert Iger), ESPN Sports channel to a "loss of paying subscribers." ESPN is the main performance of Disney's cable television network, Disney claimed that the company's cable network operating income will be "single-digit" growth, Disney stock punished by the market. New performance expectations lower than the original target, after the company had been expected to 2013-2016 fiscal year revenue growth would be "high single-digit".

But pessimistic expectations only is one of the reasons for Disney's share price suffered this summer. In November, posted a fiscal fourth-quarter, the company announced that earnings growth 7.3%, but worse-than-expected revenue growth.

But Disney is not the only paid subscribers of the company occurred. Time Warner (TWX) earlier this month said its number of cable television subscribers decline.

According to the world's largest market research company Nielsen market research company (Nielsen) provides data, ESPN paid-subscriber growth began to slow in 2011. Disney each year to the United States National Football League (NFL) for approximately $ 2 billion to broadcast, starting from 2016 and annually to the United States Basketball League (NBA) paid $ 1.4 billion. Analysts worry that the fees paid by Disney to the two deals may be too high.

In 2014, ESPN paid average monthly pay of just over $ 6. Based on this data, the loss of 3 million paying customers each year means that the Walt Disney Company revenues will be reduced by $ 216 million.