Mickey Mouse basically buys 21st Century FOX

[lompardy]

The Walt Disney Company has agreed to purchase the majority of 21st Century FOX for $68.3 billion, though the sale will not include the most influential brands known to the average American: Fox News, Fox Sports, and the FOX television broadcast network.

 

21st Century FOX is one of the largest and most influential media companies on earth. Walt Disney will now be looking to integrate a variety of production studios, including the rights to produce movies such as Avatar, and several cable television networks.

 

Globally, Disney will gain interests in the European and Oceanic broadcaster and telecommunicatons company Sky plc, which controls Sky News platforms in English, German and Italian, and control of Indian broadcaster STAR.

 

 

My Opinion

I don't see any major problems with the deal in the US. I actually think that Disney might now be a top contender to purchase the CNN asset that Trump so strongly dislikes AT&T having. The deal would make Disney the world's biggest media company.

 

I think the deal would run into regulatory hurdles in the UK due to Disney's interests in ESPN - which has a duopoly in pay-tv sports with Sky Sports in the UK - but this might be averted due to the increasing presence of Discovery Communication's Eurosport (which now owns the rights to broadcast the Olympics in Europe). I would personally like to see Sky Sports being auctioned off to a third-party company (non-US) such as Vivendi.

 

It would be interesting to see how Walt Disney deals with the plethora of news assets it will own as a result of buying the company. It's basically the second or third largest news broadcaster in the UK, Germany, Italy and India, and the largest in Australia.

 

I think, in the long run, we're going to see National Amusement's CBS and Viacom subsidiaries being auctioned off, with the majority going to either Sony or a foriegn buyer.