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What Disney's Acquisition of Fox Means For the Future of Film and TV (qz.com)
Disney announced on Thursday it had reached a $52 billion deal to buy most of the assets of 21st Century Fox. It is "the biggest and most consequential media merger in an era of big and consequential media consolidation deals," reports Quartz. "The deal will have a lasting effect on film, television, and the internet." From the report: If the merger is approved, Disney will own: All of Fox's film studios (20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, and Fox 2000); Fox's television studio; FX Networks; National Geographic; Fox's stake in European broadcaster Sky; Fox's stake in North American streamer Hulu. Staying with the hollowed out 21st Century Fox is the Fox broadcast network, Fox News, Fox Sports, and Fox Business. With Fox's film and TV studios and its cable networks, Disney will acquire the rights to literally hundreds of popular television series and movies. (Some of which include Avatar, X-Men, Deadpool, Modern Family and The Simpsons.)
Imagine all of the properties mentioned above, plus all of Disney's existing franchises (Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, etc.) combined into one internet streaming service. You won't have to imagine for long, because that's pretty much exactly why Disney CEO Bob Iger was so keen on buying all of Fox's biggest assets. Disney plans to release a streaming entertainment service in 2019. It would have been quite formidable on its own, even without Fox's help, but now it will likely be the first true rival to Netflix in the streaming space. Before today, Disney, Fox, and Comcast (NBCUniversal) all shared equal 30% stakes in Hulu (Time Warner owns 10%). But when Disney takes over Fox's share of the streaming service, it will own 60%, becoming a controlling majority owner, relegating Comcast to minority owner in the process.
20th Century Fox, we hardly knew ye. Okay, that may be a bit premature, but it's clear that Fox's film business won't be the same if the merger is approved. The deal marks the first time in modern history that one major film studio has purchased another, eliminating one of the "big six," and essentially giving Disney control of two-thirds of Hollywood. (The other four major movie studios are Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Sony.)
Imagine all of the properties mentioned above, plus all of Disney's existing franchises (Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, etc.) combined into one internet streaming service. You won't have to imagine for long, because that's pretty much exactly why Disney CEO Bob Iger was so keen on buying all of Fox's biggest assets. Disney plans to release a streaming entertainment service in 2019. It would have been quite formidable on its own, even without Fox's help, but now it will likely be the first true rival to Netflix in the streaming space. Before today, Disney, Fox, and Comcast (NBCUniversal) all shared equal 30% stakes in Hulu (Time Warner owns 10%). But when Disney takes over Fox's share of the streaming service, it will own 60%, becoming a controlling majority owner, relegating Comcast to minority owner in the process.
20th Century Fox, we hardly knew ye. Okay, that may be a bit premature, but it's clear that Fox's film business won't be the same if the merger is approved. The deal marks the first time in modern history that one major film studio has purchased another, eliminating one of the "big six," and essentially giving Disney control of two-thirds of Hollywood. (The other four major movie studios are Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Sony.)
Does that mean we can expect X-men: The Rip-off, Avatar: the Rip-off, etc?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
DisneyFlix will only become a 'rival to Netflix' because Netflix is being forced to become less of an aggregator and more of a distributor of its own content. So Netflix will become worse and Disney will only fill the void for content owned by Disney. I'm not saying anything new here - but welcome to the world of paying for multiple streaming providers (or piracy).
Perhaps its time to think about some form of compulsory copyright licenses (as per music on the radio, or cable retransmissions).
They'll think they have you by the balls and not put any effort into making their streaming service customer friendly, i.e. support many devices, work reliably on a wide range of internet connections, etc. They'll make you pay for stuff you don't want to see by bundling it with stuff that you do want to see. The list goes on and on. Monopoly tactics.
Everybody is talking about what Disney is going to do with all that intellectual property, but what I want to know is what will the 52B be used for at what is left of Fox? Thatâ(TM)s a LOT of money. What Fox does with it will also be Major unless itâ(TM)s just pocketed by investors and stock holders.
> a) Netflix is worth $92 billion. Double of the Fox company Disney is buying.
Fox has ten times the revenue and FORTY FIVE times the profit of Netflix. Netflix has hype that has generated speculative stock buys, and by every measure of fundamentals is *worth* a tiny fraction of that.
> c) Disney's revenue is declining. Properties like ABC, people aren't watch tv as much.
Disney's revenue has gone from $42B to $55B over the last five years. In the last ten years, every year has been a significant increase other than a dip in 2009, and 2017 was flat.
The deal marks the first time in modern history that one major film studio has purchased another, eliminating one of the "big six," and essentially giving Disney control of two-thirds of Hollywood. (The other four major movie studios are Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Sony.)
This means that, within the next two years, I guarantee you'll see another merger between the four other players.
And all in the name of "competition", of course.
If I was a full-time conspiracy theorist instead of just a part-timer, I'd say that the recent destruction of Net Neutrality in America was accomplished with this Disney acquisition in mind. As it is, I'll limit myself to noting that the timing is at least a little bit suspicious.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Fox has ten times the revenue and FORTY FIVE times the profit of Netflix.
Which won't mean dick if they have the wrong business model. I'm not pretending I can pick the winner here or making any sort of assertion about either companies chances but I think it would be foolish to underestimate Netflix. They've already put at least one much larger competitor in the grave (Blockbuster).
So Simpsons are now owned by Disney? Boy, oh, boy! Since Fox has been a running joke in many Simpsons episodes, I can't wait to see what they come up with about their new overlords.
So couple of things.
1. CBS all access does have shows from other studios (WB for example) that air on CBS. Those Chuck Lorre comedies (BBT, Moms) are WB shows for example.
2. You realize that Hulu is owned by Universal (Comcast), Fox, ABC (Disney), and WB right? So yes you can get shows from other networks, but those networks also own a stake in Hulu. You are still getting a service that only shows programs from it's owner's studios.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
We will get to hear the trumpeting of the 21st Centery Fox theme prior to Star Wars again, on all the new releases. And probably on any future re-releases.