Disney/FOX Acquisition Thread

[Nick]

for those worried about deadpool

Deadpool 2 was never in trouble - it’s done and Disney doesn’t own FOX yet.

It’s the future of Deadpool.

 

[Paulio]

Disney Unveils Streaming Service Launch Slate; Star Wars, Marvel | Deadline

May not have to do with Disney's merger with Fox, but this is very important. No R-rated content on Disney's new streaming service, most of them would be moved to Hulu.

 

[Viator]

Comcast Considers Reviving Pursuit of Fox After Higher Bid Was Rejected - WSJ

 

[Paulio]

Comcast Considers Reviving Pursuit of Fox After Higher Bid Was Rejected - WSJ

This is already discussed here btw.

 

[Paulio]

May

 

[Scott W.]

Rupert Murdoch's Sky bid challenged by Comcast - BBC News

If this happens it looks like people in the UK can start hating Comcast too outside of the parks.

 

[Paulio]

Rupert Murdoch's Sky bid challenged by Comcast - BBC News\

May have not to do with the deal directly, but since Sky plc is part of the Disney/Fox deal, it looks like Comcast is bidding to take over Sky plc from Fox and potentially Disney. If Comcast seriously wants to acquire Fox, having bidding for acquisition of important, foreign assets would cause some serious concerns here in the U.S., so it looks like they might run into some serious, more red flags from the DOJ.

 

[quinnmac000]

As I stated in the other thread, while this is entirely unexpected, Comcast is punishing Fox essentially for going with Disney....but I'm surprised they went for Sky first instead of ITV which has better programming opportunities. This would influence their operations in UK, Germany and Italy. It also seems like Universal is taking international operations a lot more seriously.

Secondly, it seems like regulators didn't want to the give to the Murdochs anyway especially after their scandal 4 years ago.

Rupert Murdoch's Sky bid challenged by Comcast - BBC News\

May have not to do with the deal directly, but since Sky plc is part of the Disney/Fox deal, it looks like Comcast is bidding to take over Sky plc from Fox and potentially Disney. If Comcast seriously wants to acquire Fox, having bidding for acquisition of important, foreign assets would cause some serious concerns here in the U.S., so it looks like they might run into some serious, more red flags from the DOJ.

....what? That's not how that works at all. There have been no cases within the US of a US Company purchasing a legal foreign assets that caused issues with the DOJ. The issue DOJ has is purchasing of shell companies not an asset like Sky.

 

[Paulio]

...what? That's not how that works at all. There have been no cases within the US of a US Company purchasing a legal foreign assets that caused issues with the DOJ. The issue DOJ has is purchasing of shell companies not an asset like Sky.

I stand corrected. And if that's the case, then it's not going to affect what's happening here so nothing changes.

 

[quinnmac000]

I stand corrected. And if that's the case, then it's not going to affect what's happening here so nothing changes.

It effects whether Disney can justify the price of their purchase because the assumption was FOX was going to fully purchase Sky before the deal closed. Essentially Comcast just devalued Fox after a purchase agreement was made by Disney.

 

[Jon84]

Rupert Murdoch's Sky bid challenged by Comcast - BBC News

If this happens it looks like people in the UK can start hating Comcast too outside of the parks.

I can't see that they'll make any huge changes. It's just a fingers in pies thing.

Sky is already on a trajectory to become a Dish-Free provider in the next couple of years, so that fits with Comcast's strategy to provide content over the internet.

 

[zg44]

Great tactical move by Comcast to go for Sky.

@quinnmac000

Sky and ITV are similar in strength in the UK, but Sky's assets in mainland Europe are why it's so much more attractive than ITV.

Sky has full content production and delivery in Germany, Italy, and Austria, on a combined scale that nearly matches its UK production and delivery.

That's why Comcast wants Sky instead of ITV.

Also as others have said, Sky's technology in terms of OTT is far ahead of ITV.

 

[quinnmac000]

Great tactical move by Comcast to go for Sky.

@quinnmac000

Sky and ITV are similar in strength in the UK, but Sky's assets in mainland Europe are why it's so much more attractive than ITV.

Sky has full content production and delivery in Germany, Italy, and Austria, on a combined scale that nearly matches its UK production and delivery.

That's why Comcast wants Sky instead of ITV.

Also as others have said, Sky's technology in terms of OTT is far ahead of ITV.

Don't get me wrong Sky is a great move and I'm satisfied at the ability Comcast will have to increase its influence within Europe. I'm just quite surprised they went with a company that lacks an independent content creation studio...that's really surprising. However, they can still purchase ITV without any concerns by Ofcomm as they planned to before until Richard Branson sued on the grounds of he considered it a bad faith death.

Again about 2 weeks ago (Looking back it was feb 4) in another thread, I did state Comcast was looking to acquire content in the UK based on the job opening. This was just wasn't what I was expecting. I guess this may suggest we see Comcast in talks to acquire a japanese company next.

Just quick update on universal jobs which may point to IPs/rights they are looking to acquire,

I want to point out Universal just put out quite a few acquisition jobs in Japan in the last month to include a content manager, a right manager, and multiple animation producer jobs as well as Content acquistion/development jobs in China and England.

This recent trend may indicate a huge turnover of staff or this may highlight areas where they think they can acquire content that would enhance their offerings on the world market and potentially what content, rights, etc they acquire may be exploited in the new park depending on what it is.

What Chinese, English, and Japanese IPs could NBCUni be specifically looking at?
Could we get Dr. Who the ride? Will Universal acquire Sanrio? I don't know any specifically internationally popular Chinese IPs but this could end up interesting.

 

[zg44]

Don't get me wrong Sky is a great move and I'm satisfied at the ability Comcast will have to increase its influence within Europe. I'm just quite surprised they went with a company that lacks an independent content creation studio...that's really surprising. However, they can still purchase ITV without any concerns by Ofcomm as they planned to before until Richard Branson sued on the grounds of he considered it a bad faith death.

Again about 2 weeks ago (Looking back it was feb 4) in another thread, I did state Comcast was looking to acquire content in the UK based on the job opening. This was just wasn't what I was expecting. I guess this may suggest we see Comcast in talks to acquire a japanese company next.

Yeah, I think the big attraction for Comcast is the possibilities for global OTT with Comcast and Sky combined.

Comcast's 29 million cable subscribers in the US combined with Sky's 23 million paytv subscribers in Europe gives you a powerful combined US-European distribution platform. Combine that distribution with NBCU and Sky's European content ownership (sports, news, etc.), and you can go OTT across Europe-US.

That's why I think Comcast has been so concerned about the Disney-Fox merger. Because if Disney gains Sky and Star India and the rest, then Disney can create a global OTT platform with content across the world from ABC/ESPN/Disney/Pixar, Sky's European platform, and Star India.

Where does that leave Comcast if Disney becomes like Netflix able to craft/send content to people across the world? Comcast would remain a mainly US play (except for theme parks/movies) while Disney and Netflix dominate OTT around the world.

That's really Comcast's big motivation here: 1) to remove Europe from Disney's Fox purchase, and 2) to rival Netflix by gaining a strong distribution/content foothold in Europe.

 

[Jon84]

Don't get me wrong Sky is a great move and I'm satisfied at the ability Comcast will have to increase its influence within Europe. I'm just quite surprised they went with a company that lacks an independent content creation studio...that's really surprising. However, they can still purchase ITV without any concerns by Ofcomm as they planned to before until Richard Branson sued on the grounds of he considered it a bad faith death.

Again about 2 weeks ago (Looking back it was feb 4) in another thread, I did state Comcast was looking to acquire content in the UK based on the job opening. This was just wasn't what I was expecting. I guess this may suggest we see Comcast in talks to acquire a japanese company next.

ITV would give them some content for sure, the actual ITV channels are not where the value is, it's the Studios side (previously Granada and Carlton before their merger) where they create content for other channels globally.

The job opening is interesting, we already have Universal owned channels in the UK, so there are always jobs on the Uni/NBC site for schedulers, but for content owner roles it does indicate a shift into creating new UK content.

 

[randompixel]

Didn't they acquire Euronews recently too? I think that's due to be rebranded to Euronews NBC at some point this year.

 

[quinnmac000]

Didn't they acquire Euronews recently too? I think that's due to be rebranded to Euronews NBC at some point this year.

They did indeed.

 

[Mad Dog]

Comcast: true to it's typical aggressive business model..... Glad they own Universal. Bravo. :thumbsup:

 

[quinnmac000]

NBCU statement and Fox reaction:​

NBCU’s Steve Burke Claims Comcast Sky Deal Will Boost TV/Film Fortunes | Deadline

21st Century Fox issued a statement, noting that no firm offer has been made by Comcast — and that it “remains committed to its recommended cash offer for Sky.” Fox offered $16 billion to acquire the 61% share of the British satellite broadcaster it doesn’t already own. The deal, which Fox had hoped to conclude prior to the planned Disney acquisition of much of its film and television assets, has run into difficulties.

 

[zg44]

It's going to be interesting to see where this goes: Sky is the biggest European broadcaster and a huge prize in the race for global OTT services.

For Disney or Comcast to succeed with European OTT services, Sky is central to both's plans but only one will get it.

Netflix/Amazon Prime/YouTube/FaceBook Video are all strong in Europe, so to compete with that Disney and NBCU need to connect to the content Sky owns in sports and scripted...