So this sucks, and could be the end of me somewhat.
A week or two ago while going over my normal bullfight news sources I saw some bad news. OneToro TV may be going out of business. Or maybe not, I'm not sure. I haven't read any articles or updates lately because I am too depressed.
It turns out as the Feria de Otoño in Madrid and the Feria de San Jorge in Sevilla approached, OneToro announced that due to costs they would not broadcasting those two ferias.
It sent shock waves around the bullfight world since these two ferias basically close the bullfight season in Europe and attract a large audience.
As I read some of the articles it painted a bleak picture. I guess in order to stay healthy financially OneToro TV had the goal of 200,000 subrcibers. I am one of those subscibers and have been since day one.
However, they have only had in the range of 52,000 subscribers. Which to me seems very odd.
When you consider the Plaza de Toros de Madrid holds 23,000 people, the plaza en Sevilla holds 12,000 and the plaza in Pamplona holds 19,000. Those plazas sell out regularly. Not to mention the dozens and dozens of other plazas around Spain. And what about France? What about Mexico? And all the other bullfight fans around the world, in the US, in the UK. I think one time I heard them announce during one of their broadcasts that they had subscribers in 90 countries outside of Spain.
You would think that they would easily get 200,000 subscribers.
Well, the articles went on to say that what has been happening is people are not subscribing but watching their broadcasts for free on other websites that are stealing the streams. I'm not sure what websites, I don't get into that stuff. I do thinkgs honestly, but I guess in this day and age with everything you can do on the internet there are too many thieves out there.
The articles went on to say that out of every 5 people that are watching in Spain only 1 is paying. And it was even worse in Mexico, out of every 20 people watching only 1 is paying.
So they may not be able to continue what they are doing, meaning the bullfights may have to go back to just cable tv. Which for me and others here in the US means no more access to bullfights, except for photos on MundoToro.com and other news websites, and the occasional highlight video they provide.
I mean, that is what I have had to do in the past, I can just keep doing that in the future.
But I am getting old, I don't know if I want to put for the effort anymore. I don't know, we'll see.
At certain times of the year the bullfight bug bites me more, maybe right now just the bullfight bug isn't biting. A lot of times it bites hard in the late winter and spring, maybe I will have a better attitude then.
One thing is for sure though, it is hard being a bullfight fan in the US.
