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Disney Makes Deal for 21st Century Fox, Reshaping Entertainment Landscape (nytimes.com)
Disney is going all in for its upcoming fight with Netflix and other streaming giants. The Walt Disney Company said Thursday that it had reached a deal to buy most of the assets of 21st Century Fox, the conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, in an all-stock transaction valued at roughly $52.4 billion. From a report: To complete the integration, a legacy-defining task, Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive, agreed to renew his contract for a fourth time, delaying retirement from July 2019 to the end of 2021. While the merger still requires approval by antitrust regulators -- and the Justice Department recently moved to block a big media company from becoming even bigger -- the once unthinkable acquisition promises to reshape Hollywood and Silicon Valley. It is the biggest counterattack from a traditional media company against the tech giants that have aggressively moved into the entertainment business. Disney now has enough muscle to become a true competitor to Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook in the fast-growing realm of online video. Alternative source: Variety.
Does that include the fake news business? Micky mouse meets a gay liberal muslim conspiracy to give everyone affordable healthcare!
We wouldn't want that bastion of fair and balanced quality journalism to be tainted by Disney.
That's it. I'm Boycotting all Disney products. I hope people wake up and start doing this before they completely destroy the entertainment industry. I was feeling uneasy about them for a while, but this is the last straw. They need to be made to divest of a large part of their recent acquisitions. This kind of monopoly is good for no one.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
I believe in low regulation, but think the government needs to step in when the market becomes uncommunicative, whether that be the desktop OS market, the internet service provider market, the search engine market or the movie industry. Unfortunately, both parties are now bought and paid for by industry, and are completely unwilling to intervene in uncompetitive markets.
An increasing number of markets are tending towards monopolies, and in all cases the company in charge is abusing that monopoly. Rather than intervene, the government actively encourages them, banning community run ISPs, allowing mergers and removing barriers to abuse.
What we have is not capitalism and the free market, it's more like a corrupt soviet system run by a small number of elites. We desperately need to restore a competitive market place by splitting up monopoly companies.
Am I the only one that worries about this? Disney has been gobbling up IP for the last few years with Marvel and LucasFilms and with the acquisition of Fox's movies (which include some of Marvel's IP) I find it to be a bit much. It also means there will be one less studio out there making movies in a world where other studios such as Sony and Paramount are reporting losses. There were even rumors of Sony wanting to sell their movie studio. Will Disney eat them up too in some near future?
21st century fox has the licenses for spiderman and x-men. Disney has said they want all marvel properties under one roof...
Apple cash: >200B
Disney Market Cap: ~166B
That doesn't seem like a contest.