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Comcast Confirms Plan To Buy 21st Century Fox and Control of Hulu (arstechnica.com)
Comcast is reportedly preparing an offer to buy major portions of 21st Century Fox, which would give it majority control of Hulu and other media properties. Ars Technica reports: Walt Disney Company already has a $52.4 billion all-stock deal to buy the 21st Century Fox properties. But Comcast was rumored to be lining up $60 billion in financing in order to make a hostile bid for the Fox assets, and Comcast's announcement today confirms it. Comcast "is considering, and is in advanced stages of preparing, an offer for the businesses that Fox has agreed to sell to Disney," Comcast's announcement said. Comcast is working on the offer in preparation for shareholder meetings in which the Disney/Fox deal will be considered.
The Fox properties for sale do not include assets such as the Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and Fox Broadcasting Company. Those properties would be spun off into a company being referred to as "New Fox," and Comcast would acquire 21st Century Fox after the spinoff. The Fox sale to either Disney or Comcast would include 21st Century Fox's film and television studios; cable entertainment networks; the Fox Sports Regional Networks; and international properties including Star in India and Fox's 39-percent ownership of Sky across Europe. The sale would also include Fox's 30-percent stake in Hulu, the popular online video streaming service. Comcast already owns 30 percent of Hulu, so a deal with Fox would give the nation's largest cable company majority control over the online video provider.
The Fox properties for sale do not include assets such as the Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and Fox Broadcasting Company. Those properties would be spun off into a company being referred to as "New Fox," and Comcast would acquire 21st Century Fox after the spinoff. The Fox sale to either Disney or Comcast would include 21st Century Fox's film and television studios; cable entertainment networks; the Fox Sports Regional Networks; and international properties including Star in India and Fox's 39-percent ownership of Sky across Europe. The sale would also include Fox's 30-percent stake in Hulu, the popular online video streaming service. Comcast already owns 30 percent of Hulu, so a deal with Fox would give the nation's largest cable company majority control over the online video provider.
As unacceptable ideas go, this is only short of giving Donald Trump the Nobel Prize for Literature, and just worse than living inside a nuclear reactor core.
Wow, you 'cut the cord' on companies like Comcast and went to streaming services like Hulu, and now guess what? You'll be giving your money to Comcast again anyway, if this deal goes through.
Bite my shiny metal ass Comcast.
FWIW, whoever wins the deal will have majority control over Hulu. Fox, Disney, and Comcast each own an equal stake in Hulu.
Comcast and Fox are the future of media under our glorious president Trump! It's going to finally be GREAT being an American again. Trump 2020!
Comcast own 90% Regional Networks no way!
If this happens then the ATT / timewarner deal needs to happen as well.
Please make Hulu available in Canada.
#DeleteFacebook
Hates NBC!
ketchup: conspire
Comcast over-leverages itself with debt trying to get the money for this "all cash offer" and then fails to do anything successful with the pieces (e.g. under their control X-men ends up being Dark Universe 2) and eventually ends up having to sell it to Disney anyways at a huge net loss.
$500 initialization fee, $29.95/month for SD stream, $49.95/month for HD stream, Add'l $19.95 per Gb if you go over 50Gb of shows per month, $25 in fees and taxes, and $1000 Hulu cancellation fee if you're not happy.
If I read correctly that do not actually have the *cash* to pay for this takeover, but will finance the operation. Given how recently ToysRUs had a very slow and painful death due to a similar leveraged buyout, I do not expect this one to go well either.
According to their financials, Fox made ~3bn last year in profits:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quot...
This means it will take 20 years for them to pay off the 60bn debt. This assumes no investment in R&D, staff, or paying dividends. (That is why ToysRUs become unable to compete, they had no profit margin left after payments).
Comcast is in a better position with 20bn in profits:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quot...
However will they skim from shareholder dividends to pay for Fox operations? It looks like they are already down by about 2%, meaning the idea is not liked on the market.
And this is before anything about the customers. They would want to milk every *value* out of current customers, meaning worse service and/or higher prices across the board.
I do not have any shares in any of these companies, however if I had one, I would have voted against such a merger. (for clarification, I'm no financial expert, this is my personal opinion, don't act on it)
That Comcast doesn't fuck up the reversion of Marvel properties to Marvel/Disney.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Comcast reaches monopoly status. Awesome.
Good thing we have net neutrality or this would be a major problem. Whew! crisis avoided!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I don't think Comcast really knows how to run a film studio either, which means there likely won't be many synergies.
I think it's defenive though, they don't want Disney to have Hulu and use it for Disney streaming. It would really weakened them vs Disney if Disney had a content distribution network and decent streaming service (Hulu is worse than Netflix, but better than. HBO in the quality of the app IMO, and Mike's above other random streaming services).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
All of these companies are so far gone anyway, and all their properties are such garbage, it doesn't even matter.
Good thing we have net neutrality or this would be a major problem. Whew! crisis avoided!
I'm assuming this is mostly sarcasm, but either way, even with the victory in the senate, its likely to die in the house, and even if it didn't die in the house, well I'm assuming Trump would veto it, and even if he didn't, most likely, those in charge will just ignore violations, to the extent they can.
For now network neutrality is either dead or nearly dead. Might change in 2020, or possibly after the midterms. We shall see.
You think Copyright lengths are bad now. Expect to pay by the second for all media, and you will have no rights at all. We need to break these companies up, not let them keep merging into one blob.
Oi i know its hard to keep track of all these mega mergers but comcast swallowed NBC/Universal years ago which is also how they came into owning 30% of Hulu. As much as hating them is fun NBC studios and Universal have plenty of size and experience to make it.
This is a very good thing for Americans because choice is confusing and just makes people angry.
This is another step towards that glorious future when there is one business in every market so Americans don't have to spend their valuable time trying to decide what to buy.
Merge the banks next.
cable cos should not be able to buy content creators, or be permitted to create content. thats a conflict of interest.
As much as the industry whines and complains about their losses to piracy, you'd think they'd be glad to dump these money losers. Yet their value skyrockets along with the monopoly that only benefits industry insiders. And yes, they're pushing again to extend their exclusive copyright holdings for many more years.
This industry should be investigated as a criminal cartel.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Thanks, it made sense NBC would have a studio, but I couldn't think of one.
Should have googled instead of weasel words I guess.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
This is the first time I noticed that theyâ(TM)re not 20th Century Fox anymore...
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
We do not need the elimination of competition by purchasing competitors. We will simply get less and be forced to pay more. Maybe Congress or the courts will help us.
realistically Murdoch has to figure out how much tax he will pay
There is lots of tax in a cash deal so the bid has to be much higher
Incidentally, TFA says they'll only attempt to proceed with this IF the ATT/time warner deal is approved. If it's not, then Disney's current offer will likely stand.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Its going to give Comcast a big advantage over content if this would go through. I have my doubts that the government would not see this as a unfair marketing advantage.
So you say this will break the company? I fail to see the "bad" part you talk about in your subject.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Remember: Comcast owns NBC. It'll be fun when they also own Fox.
This is fine but they should be forced to break off their ISP business.
C'hulhu... A Comcast company.