Quietly, ESPN 3D is going dark as of Monday, September 30. It was announced to great fanfare in 2010 at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, but not even four years later, the network is going dark after not enough interest by the American people in 3-D TV.
ESPN had high hopes for 3D, producing the World Cup, The Masters, selected NBA games, the BCS Championship Game, Wimbledon and various college football and college basketball games in the third dimension. In addition, Comcast and DirecTV were among the major cable and satellite providers to pick up the network. It started a 24/7 schedule in February 2011 anticipating a big response from viewers. However, the American people did not respond to television manufacturers force-feeding 3-D TV sets after the big digital conversion from standard to high definition between 2008 and 2009.
Americans invested in buying new high definition television sets and digital converters when the federal government mandated television stations to broadcast in HD. It was an expensive conversion not just for networks, but also for consumers. The low-end HD sets originally cost as much as $2,000 and it was an expensive investment. And people had to buy their new sets in the midst of the Great Recession.
Television manufacturers greatly miscalculated the demand for 3-D TV and so did ESPN. While Discovery, DirecTV and a few other networks attempted to launch 3-D channels, viewership wasn’t high. Viewers who bought HDTV sets were happy with the sharp pictures for sports and entertainment programming. They weren’t happy having to wear bulky glasses to watch TV.
The viewership for 3-D was so small, only an estimated 115,000 people were watching 3-D programming at one time, that it didn’t register with Nielsen for significant ratings data. By the time of this year’s Consumer Electronic Show, it was apparent that 3-D TV was on its deathbed. Television manufacturers were now pointing to the “next big thing” in the industry, 4K high definition which is even sharper than the current high definition displays.
However, as 3-D TV cost an average $1,500 extra for consumers, in hard economic times, it was difficult to convince buyers to shell out the extra cash to go to the third dimension.
So ESPN 3D will go by the wayside on Monday. And by judging from the lack of stories and reaction, it appears it won’t be missed. ESPN’s failures are greatly outnumbered by its many successes, but when there are failures, they’re usually on a grand scape. Remember ESPN Mobile, the cell phone service that the network pulled after a few short months?
ESPN 3D certainly didn’t change the sports television landscape, but it did provide viewers with some big events. As the network focuses on other technologies, ESPN 3D will be a blip in its history. For those who have 3D sets, they’ll have another network that becomes just another memory.
