Confirming what we've been saying all along: A report in The Wall Street Journal says that both Disney's Mobile ESPN MVNO and Amp'd Mobile, which is partially backed by Viacom and Vivendi, are struggling to attain subscribers. Mobile ESPN is "going back to the drawing boards after a botched entry into the market," according to the newspaper's source. Also, the source says that the misstep will cost Disney tens of millions of dollars. Amp'd is also struggling: After its debut five months ago, the service has only managed to subscribe fewer than 10,000 users, according to the report. Amp'd raised $250 million in funding, and Disney said it expected to invest more than $130 million in Mobile ESPN and its other MVNO Disney Mobile. We predicted the MVNO shake-out of 2006 in our FierceWireless trends piece at the beginning of the year.
For more on the MVNO shake-out:
- read this WSJ article (sub. req.)