Disney will acquire 21st Century Fox assets for $70B after Comcast drops bid
Disney has won the battle for 21st Century Fox, with Comcast surrendering the field to Apple's ally.
Bringing to an end a bidding war between two of the world's leading entertainment conglomerates, Comcast has announced that it's giving up on purchasing the 21st Century Fox assets from News Corp., paving the way for the Walt Disney Company to buy them.
"Comcast does not intend to pursue further the acquisition of the Twenty-First Century Fox assets and, instead, will focus on our recommended offer for Sky," Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement. "I'd like to congratulate Bob Iger and the team at Disney and commend the Murdoch family and Fox for creating such a desirable and respected company."
The assets purchased include Fox's movie and TV studios, the FX cable networks, and the Fox regional sports networks. Other Rupert Murdoch-owned assets, such as Fox News, the Fox TV network, and newspapers, will remain part of News Corp. Murdoch, ironically, has made multiple attempts to the past to purchase Sky TV.
The Disney acquisition will require approval of government regulators, although it already cleared one hurdle. The Trump Administration has opposed, with little success, the recent acquisition of Time Warner by AT&T.
Disney announced in December of last year that it had indeed bid to acquire the Fox assets for $52.4 billion. In June, Comcast made a $65 billion all-cash bid to beat out Disney for the deal.
Disney came back with an offer that exceeded $70 billion that same month.
While Fox shareholders were scheduled to vote later this month, Comcast backed out on Thursday.
On the other hand, the Fox deal will bring a huge new amount of content to Disney's upcoming streaming service, which will provide even stiffer competition to Apple's own content plans.
Some speculation has had Apple, amidst the current wave of media consolidation, moving to purchase a studio or distributor themselves.
Bringing to an end a bidding war between two of the world's leading entertainment conglomerates, Comcast has announced that it's giving up on purchasing the 21st Century Fox assets from News Corp., paving the way for the Walt Disney Company to buy them.
"Comcast does not intend to pursue further the acquisition of the Twenty-First Century Fox assets and, instead, will focus on our recommended offer for Sky," Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement. "I'd like to congratulate Bob Iger and the team at Disney and commend the Murdoch family and Fox for creating such a desirable and respected company."
The assets purchased include Fox's movie and TV studios, the FX cable networks, and the Fox regional sports networks. Other Rupert Murdoch-owned assets, such as Fox News, the Fox TV network, and newspapers, will remain part of News Corp. Murdoch, ironically, has made multiple attempts to the past to purchase Sky TV.
The Disney acquisition will require approval of government regulators, although it already cleared one hurdle. The Trump Administration has opposed, with little success, the recent acquisition of Time Warner by AT&T.
The history of the battle
The saga began in November 2017 when initital reports stated that Disney was in talks to buy Fox's movie and TV studio assets. A large percentage of the initial media coverage centering on what the deal meant for the different superheroes (X-Men, The Avengers) that might be brought into the same fictional universe.Disney announced in December of last year that it had indeed bid to acquire the Fox assets for $52.4 billion. In June, Comcast made a $65 billion all-cash bid to beat out Disney for the deal.
Disney came back with an offer that exceeded $70 billion that same month.
While Fox shareholders were scheduled to vote later this month, Comcast backed out on Thursday.
Apple and 21st Century Fox
The outcome of the deal appears to favor Apple, as the company has long enjoyed strong ties with Disney, from Steve Jobs' involvement with Pixar to Disney CEO Robert Iger's seat on the Apple board of directors. Apple recently made iPhones and other training materials available to Disney for a "#DreamBigPrincess" video project.On the other hand, the Fox deal will bring a huge new amount of content to Disney's upcoming streaming service, which will provide even stiffer competition to Apple's own content plans.
Some speculation has had Apple, amidst the current wave of media consolidation, moving to purchase a studio or distributor themselves.
Comments
It won't be easy. Too much legacy that they'd be unwilling to let go.
The thing about which I care most is getting the fucking copyright laws FORCIBLY LIMITED, and even perhaps reverted. Then we can destroy Netflix, too.
Meanwhile, Congress still won't force U.S. over-the-air radio to pay performance royalties (they only pay publishing rights to the composers via ASCAP, BMI and SESAC). There is a proposal before Congress to amend the copyright law to extend to pre-1972 recordings, which it doesn't cover today, but with everything going on in Congress, it looks like it might not be addressed this session and they'll have to start over again next session.
But let's say that Congress doesn't extend the copyright law for movies. So "Steamboat Willie" and some other films fall into the public domain. How does that really help anyone? All that will happen is that a bunch of low-budget DVD companies will put out crappy copies of it and similarly crappy copies will show up on Netflix and other streaming services. And then the companies that do a great job of restoring films, like Criterion and others, might not survive.
My problem with Disney buying Fox isn't the copyright issue -- it's that I don't like to see such consolidation of assets. That happened in the record industry and it's really hurt the quality of music (IMO) with just Sony, Universal and Warner as majors It could also raise ticket and media prices as Disney will have ownership of so much content and they've already tried to play hardball with theaters. There's a controversy right now with the remaining drive-ins because Disney is demanding a three-week window, which will put them out of business.
As for Apple buying a studio - it might be too late. The only non-tiny studio left is Paramount and most of the Paramount slate is co-productions or distribution deals. There's also Lionsgate which is owned by a bunch of investment firms, but the entire Lionsgate library is fewer than 400 films and lots of those are co-pros. But maybe in 5-10 years, when AT&T finds out it knows nothing about running Warner Bros. and is destroying the company, it will sell that to Apple. (AT&T buying Warner concerns me much more than Disney buying Fox).
But does Apple want to be in the amusement park and cruise ship business? I suppose they could spin off that business, but the parks are very dependent upon Disney's IP, although I suppose an Apple owned Disney could license that out. But Murdoch would have to support it because I'm pretty sure he becomes the largest Disney stockholder, although that's also been previously said about Jobs (after selling Pixar) and Lucas (who got half stock and half cash). If Apple did buy Disney (which includes the Muppets, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel and now Fox), they'd wind up with a 3000-film library, although more than half of it probably has little value in today's world.
It is the same thing Comcast did to Time Warner when rumors were circulating Apple and Time Warner was working on the idea of eliminating the STB and replace it with and ATV which allow Time Warner to sell subscriptions to anyone with a broadband connection even if Time Warner did not have a physical presents. You are now seeing it happen with DTV and Charter who offer a streaming only service via an ATV and subscription to one of those services. There are people in NYC who could not put up a DTV dish who now can get DVT service via their ATV. Comcast wanted to delay this so they could offer their competing service, they did not want Apple and its competitors to get a 3 or 4 yr head start on them. When Comcast put their bid offer to Time Warner, TW has to stop its conversation with Apple.
I think Comcast is up to its tricks and delay tactics yet again and Disney is now paying for it.
The copyright issue is a clear example of the corporatism alive and well in western governments today. When people rail against capitalism, it is really this kind of corporatism they are complaining about. The market doesn’t particularly care one way or another about the mouse, but Big Business Disney does, and has regularly stitched up favours with their mates in Big Government to protect its revenue from Mickey. Your market has been corrupted by corporatism. The other Tri-umpherate member, Big Union, was probably in there too facilitating the deal with their mates too.
back on topic. This sort of consolidation and reduction in competition will be bad for america in the long run. The proper role of government here should be to prevent it.
Kudos to Netflix for realizing early on that they needed to develop original content to remain viable, but keep in mind that five years ago they only had about a dozen original content shows, Apple is already ahead of where Netflix was at the same stage.