• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 6, 2016

One media analyst believes Walt Disney would be better without ESPN-- that the volatility around the big cable TV network is a distraction when it comes to valuing parts of Disney’s entertainment assets.

Possibly ESPN could be spun off -- or sold to another buyer. The argument is that both Disney and ESPN could prosper better as separate entities, says Steve Cahall, a media analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

Much of this comes from Disney’s admitted concerns over losing subscribers, which, at times, has been putting pressure on Disney’s stock.

The flip side of all this: ESPN, of course, is a tremendous revenue-making machine. And, perhaps more importantly, it is used by Disney as a key business leveraging tool by packaging it with other Disney-ABC networks in selling to traditional pay TV providers, and more importantly, new digital and virtual TV services.

What probably gets lost in the shuffle is that subscriber losses don’t just reside with Disney. Virtually every other big cable TV network has been hit with declines at well, due to cord-cutting and the rise of digital media options.

Does this mean that other big media conglomerates should be thinking along the same lines? That all those cable networks need to be spun off because of anticipated rocky revenue growth in future years?

Is there a history lesson here?

For the past several years, big media has been spinning off some slower-growth media operations from those moving at a faster rate. For big media, this includes newspapers, magazines, radio and outdoor businesses.

In one of the bigger ironies here, it wasn’t that long ago CBS and Viacom were part of the same company. Then controlling shareholder National Amusements decided it would be better for growth if CBS and Viacom were operated and publicly traded as individual companies

So how was CBS and Viacom each identified, in terms of fast or slow growth? Broadcast TV has been viewed as the older, slower growth medium for many; Viacom (with cable networks), the newer, faster growth medium.

Maybe all that didn’t turn out exactly as expected. And now its controlling shareholder wants to put the band back together.