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Comcast Wants To Buy Disney For $66 Billion

BenBenBen writes "Comcast have made a surprise $66 billion bid for Disney. The public bid (aimed at swaying shareholders) follows a period of secret negotiation which resulted in Eisner saying no. Comcast has a statement on their website and there is better coverage available here."

10 of 573 comments (clear)

  1. deja-vu^WAOL-Time-Warner all over again by shaldannon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ISP buys media giant. ISP tries to merge businesses. ISP fails. ISP discards its name and adopts media giant's name. Stock plummets.

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  2. Re:Terminal Entertainment by Bish.dk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Reading your post, I wish that the moderation system had a "+1 Scary".

    I doubt it will happen though. Some terminal systems may come that are nothing but internet-enabled TVs, but I doubt that anyone will manage to move the internet away from the basic protocols, which allow us all to create our own applications, and not just sit around waiting for the corporations to do it for us.

  3. Re:Comcast and Disney by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Does Comcast really have that kind of cash?

    Only wimps worry about cash! Just look at the mighty Worldcom/MCI and how they built their empire without cash or income. Buy up competitors, strip their support staff to nothing, and use them as collateral for the next aquistion, that's the way you do it!

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  4. Re:Terminal Entertainment by bludstone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I always hate posts like this.

    Slashdot and thousands of communities like it still exist today, and there is no sign that they are on the decline. Come to me when they start collapsing.

    Generally, we are clever enough to work around such problems.

    Sure, the Internet can be used like a TV, but I dont see the other services vanishing because of that fact.

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  5. Re:Question from non-usa by DeepRedux · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Comcast is bigger than Disney. Comcast's market capitalization is 76.3B, while Disney's is only 49.2B. (These number will move some in reaction to this bid.)

    One reason for the increase in cable bills is the cost of programming, especially for the ESPN sports channels. ESPN is owned by Disney.

    Also, this bid is a reaction to Murdoch's putting together his Fox channels with DirectTV.

  6. Re:Hostile takeover? by O · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Steve Jobs owns MSFT? I doubt that. I think you meant Steve Balmer, mate.

    See for yourself.

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    1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 -- Mathematics is the Language of Nature.
  7. Not quite... by tkrotchko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "this seems like a lot of money for a chain of shops, a few theme parks and a stack of about-to-go-out-of-copyright cartoon characters."

    Don't forget ABC and ESPN. Those are probably of more interest to Comcast than cartoons and theme parks.

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  8. cable rates and monopolies. by way2trivial · · Score: 4, Insightful
    is there any better proof that comcast seriously overcharges consumers for services than this type of expenditure?

    they argue about regulation of the cable industry when they cry about razor thin profits.. then they BUY DISNEY?

    cable companies are as weird a governmental supplied monopoly as baseball.. they have far to much a stranglehold over their individual market, and not enough oversight...

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  9. Re:Terminal Entertainment by Bish.dk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it is interesting to take a look at what happened to the XBOX. It is basically the system you're describing as "x86 or PPC CPUs, hard drives, etc." and it got modded all over the place. People today are using it for viewing copied movies, DVDs from all regions, general media center and a lot of other stuff. Things it was never meant to do!

    I don't see the big corporations taking over as long as this can happen... And "Yay!" to that! :D

  10. One-word reply by Valdrax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slashdot and thousands of communities like it still exist today, and there is no sign that they are on the decline. Come to me when they start collapsing.

    How?

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