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Comcast Outbids Disney for Fox's Assets With $65 Billion All-Cash Offer
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It's not for Rupert Murdoch, but his son. Who would also be in line for the vacant COO position at Disney, placing him in a good position to eventually succeed Iger as CEO.
Can Comcast please piss off? We want the X-Men in the MCU so we can have an epic Avengers vs X-Men movie!
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I’m with you.
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I’m with you.
I hope Comcast wins. Everyone here is thinking about how great their franchises would be and forgetting how bad it would be for the industry as a whole.
This is great rationale. Clearly, vertical monopolies are the way to go for consumers.
If you want:
One company owning almost all relevant IP
One less studio for new ideas
The continued bland-ization of IP
Way more people losing their job
Go for it. Support Disney.
You forgot that Comcast owns NBCUniversal, its cable business, and its internet. The IP isn't going to be better in Universal's hands.
People losing more jobs? Part of divesting and acquisition is consolidation.
Yeah, but Disney has more overlap with 21st Century Fox than Comcast. Also, the IP would be better in anyone's hands than Disney.
I think you underestimated who is Rupert and how much money he makes from this deal. Who are the board members of Disney that everybody knows, more like if Rupert joined the team he's the most popular one. Looks like this guy no longer need anybody to have an influence everywhere in the US.
Fair enough. I can see how you're fixated on Disney having control over MCU IP for your own personal reasons.
For the consumer who is either a content-watcher or a subscriber, there are much more critical repercussions.
- Let's assume Comcast decides to spin up a streaming service with FOX MCU content and Universal. They also charge a questionable competitive price. In 2-3 years, you will hypothetically be paying for Netflix, Disney, and Comcast.
- When it comes to creative direction for IP, you also should also realize that Fox had churned out several iterations of its X-Men series. They are no saint either when it comes to producing IP. If Disney were to acquire this, they could at least bring it in to be have more of a tangent. Comcast on the other hand could in theory hold the content on not just their service but SOLELY for their cable internet customers and charge a premium for it too.
- If they acquire Fox they will most likely have Universal running the studio side of Fox. With this acquisition they not only acquire your so called MCU IP, but also Sky. I won't dive into details but if Comcast was to control Sky's operations as well, people in Europe are going to be angry. They will also more than double their debt which will probably be absorbed by the consumer.
- They will have 60% stake in Hulu. No one wants a cable service company to own a content service.
Do you think Rupert cares about only money or his legacy? How would you feel if your legacy had a chance to join Disney but instead opted to join Comcast for more cash at present? Assuming Disney share prices increase and current signs indicate that they will, you will have your name written in the books as that person who played it safe.
The idea that they would spend 65B on something just for their customers is not a logical one.
Comcast and how they treat their customers, I don't think this will turn out well for consumers.
Given the AT&T decision and merger, I wonder if Disney and Apple would make a joint bid for Fox to ensure that Comcast cannot get them.
Disney then gets more experience in being a content king.
Then I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple in a few years bought Disney.
Disney then gets more experience in being a content king.
Then I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple in a few years bought Disney.
You mentioned the idea that Comcast could hold the content for their subscribers only. That's a ridiculous idea.
Yes. Because they're going into massive debt. They're going to want to make that money back. -_-
Not saying that Comcast would definitively exercise that option, but here's an example for you:
The Los Angeles Dodgers. In LA there are a couple cable companies (Charter, Verizon, AT&T, DirecTV, and Time Warner). If you want to watch the Dodgers, you can only watch it on Time Warner. I think you could pay for MLB.tv but you'd still get blacked out due to blackout restrictions if you're in the area. The repercussion was they passed on the Dodgers deal to the TW subscribers. Yeah... every month they sapped a few dollars for the deal even if you didn't watch them.
Again not saying it would happen, but I would be very open minded about the outcome especially with cable companies like Comcast.