Disney bought 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion in stock

[Dudley]

I wonder if Disney will try to make a kid friendly version of Big Brother. That would be hilarious.


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[Nexonius]

European Commission Approves Disney’s $71 Billion Acquisition Of Fox, With Conditions

Disney-Fox is cleared the EU with the condition that Disney divests its control of the A+E Networks operating in that region.

Ironically Sky co-owns A+E Networks UK, and if everyone's been keeping up to date about Sky, it's now 100% owned by Comcast as of today (with the London Stock Exchange finally delisting Sky today). NBCUniversal had a part of A+E until 2012, and five years later they sold their stake in its international operations last year. So once again, Comcast has a part of A+E somewhere.

 

[sasq]

Will Universal retain the distribution rights to Mr. Bean?

 

[ZanyLogic5]

I can imagine Disney running into numerous rights issues over the musicals in Glee since many of them are revised versions of already existing songs.

 

[lowell]

Ironically Sky co-owns A+E Networks UK, and if everyone's been keeping up to date about Sky, it's now 100% owned by Comcast as of today (with the London Stock Exchange finally delisting Sky today). NBCUniversal had a part of A+E until 2012, and five years later they sold their stake in its international operations last year. So once again, Comcast has a part of A+E somewhere.

At least it's just the channels and this can just maybe turned over to Hearst who is the other 50% stake owner here, the programming Disney can keep and put them into Hulu and the main service.

 

[Fone Bone]

I wonder if Disney will try to make a kid friendly version of Big Brother. That would be hilarious.

That would be child abuse.

 

[Red Arrow]

Disney seems to gain a little less with each round of approval, but I don’t know how important owning A+E in Europe is in the grand scheme of things.

These 5 channels aren't important at all. They don't even come close to National Geographic's and Discovery's popularity.

Blaze and Lifetime are only available in the UK and Ireland.
History, H2 and Crime+Investigation are aired all over Europe. The European feeds are also broadcast in Africa and the Middle East, so Disney will lose those territories as well, unless they start showing the Asian feed there, but I honestly doubt they care.

 

[SourSweetGone]

I wonder if after all the other awful stuff going on in the world calms down (if it ever does) If country/group of other companies/individuals/etc will sue Disney over this for becoming a monopoly. At the very least someone needs to show the mouse and others that this awful precedent they've set of I.P. Hoarding and Corporate Cannibalism is NOT OK!

 

[RandomMe]

These 5 channels aren't important at all. They don't even come close to National Geographic's and Discovery's popularity.

Blaze and Lifetime are only available in the UK and Ireland.
History, H2 and Crime+Investigation are aired all over Europe. The European feeds are also broadcast in Africa and the Middle East, so Disney will lose those territories as well, unless they start showing the Asian feed there, but I honestly doubt they care.

We also have Blaze.

 

[Red Arrow]

We also have Blaze.

And Spain too, apparantly. So 4 countries in total, then.

Crime + Investigation closed down a few months ago in Belgium. It was only available on satellite tv. We never had H2, so the only A+E network that's left here is History channel, but it's a pay channel so not many people know about it.

 

[RandomMe]

Honestly when I saw the news of the deal in Europe I thought that Disney hadn't sold its stake in A+E Networks.

 

[Anti-Hero 69]

When's China gonna decide on this? I wanna see if they decide to screw over the film industry or the United States.

 

[Red Arrow]

They have better things to worry about, and I don't think they can change much.

The Chinese Disney and FOX networks are only broadcast in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and perhaps Macau. Not in Mainland China. They get some of those shows and films on local channels. There's a Disney theme park in Shanghai, but it is owned for less than 50% by Disney.

Disney and FOX have pretty much no power in the Chinese market, so I don't see how China could boycot the deal.

 

[Dudley]

What about Disney and Fox’s film output in China? Could that be a factor?

Honestly, I feel that China could stop the deal out of spite due to the trade war. At which case Disney will no doubt fight their decision.

Disney however is so confident, that they already have National Geographic for its website placeholder for their streaming service, Disney+.
Disney+


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[Anti-Hero 69]

What about Disney and Fox’s film output in China? Could that be a factor?

Honestly, I feel that China could stop the deal out of spite due to the trade war. At which case Disney will no doubt fight their decision.

Disney however is so confident, that they already have National Geographic for its website placeholder for their streaming service, Disney+.
Disney+


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I'd probably be careful with that confidence Disney's presenting. And while it could be nice imo for Disney not to buy Fox stuff, China would look stupid to do so, but if that's their last resort to get back at Trump, so be it.

 

[LinusFan303]

Disney is opening up the bidding for Fox Sports Network since they can't own it , Fox may buy it back , but who knows. https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2018/11/08/disney-opens-up-bidding-for-22-fox-rsn.html

 

[lowell]

Actually, you can get from Directv: Phoenix InfoNews Channel & Phoenix North America Chinese Channel and from Dish Network: those 2 mentioned above plus Star Chinese Channel and Star Chinese Movies.

I think it's important to keep looking at the news between US and China in the past few days: Beijing is ready for talks with the US to resolve trade issues: China's vice president

The most important concept in economics besides TINSTAAFL (There's no such thing as a free lunch) is that trade is good if you don't have a lot of grasp in that field but just hear about economics all the time.

My theory is that the administration before making these tarriffs, they knew the midterms was going to turn out not how they wanted and so this is like a PR stunt to make sure people knew the president save the economy by making bold moves to get better deals and it's one of the tactics they're using for a 2020 re-election campaign. He has holdings in China so I mean, the government could have done something about that as retaliation. But the fact is I wouldn't be surprised he uses the G20 summit at the end of this month to end this war so he could bring his approval rating back up. Yet when some critics of the press said it's okay, we won't be affected because they don't like "fake news" who said they are going to be affected and the President will rescue us, they ended up paying for the tariff. Tax dollars had to be use to subsidized soybean farmers in the country.

Leading to the regulatory approval, if all goes well at G20, the announcement might come at the first week of December at the earliest. If not, then I think both China and Disney are willing to wait until the trade war's done to announce anything. Plus, for any company going to operate in China, you just have to be on good terms with them and follow their laws. Also, I think Disney probably got an advantage by heeding China's denial of Christopher Robin's release due to public reason of quota and likelier reason of the Chinese president being compared to Winnie the Pooh as propaganda.

For example, Comcast had problems with China for buying Dreamworks because they didn't do the regulatory approval filings required so they ended up offloading Pearl Studio (formerly Oriental Dreamworks) though there was no public announcement of forced divestment.
"A former Justice Department attorney at Jones Day law firm told Reuters the main issue might be that the broadcast company didn’t seek Chinese approval for the deal before the merger, and the consequences could range from a fine to full unwinding of the deal.
"If (Comcast) didn't file and they should have filed, this will be resolved with a fine and a press release," said Bruce McDonald. "Is this China just being tough on a U.S. company? I don't think so, it might be them being sticklers for following Chinese filing rules."

https://www.bizjournals.com/philade...-dreamworks-china-antitrust-fcc-liberman.html

But insider trading also happened so Comcast was given approval anyway since it wasn't their fault:

SEC charges Chinese investor with insider trading in Comcast-DreamWorks Animation deal - Los Angeles Times

Note: On the Disney+ website, for National Geographic, there's a subnote saying "*Subject to availability and closing 21CF transaction" so I think they were allowed to place it if they made the public aware that the deal is still on its regulatory journey and that could be one of the provisions of the document they published.

People in Europe waiting for Disney+ and Hulu rollout has Comcast to thank for a early 2020 arrival at the latest since they got Sky instead of Disney, which would have used Sky to help Bamtech with the direct-to-consumer distribution. Bob Iger made a Simpsons reference today over Sky being seized by Comcast: “You can’t cry over spilled milk — nothing you can do about it.” When in fact, the Simpsons predicted Disney would be their new family in the past.


Also, the funniest thing is that I see the people hating Disney for being an oligopoly and going for this acquisition and calling them a monopoly are sad that the Netflix monopoly is ending. Hey, you asked for competition, here it comes. The streaming wars continue!

 

[ZackSmith1]

Why does Disney/Fox deal require Chinese approval and what assets do they even have there? My solution is pull out of the Chinese market.

 

[Red Arrow]

Why does Disney/Fox deal require Chinese approval and what assets do they even have there? My solution is pull out of the Chinese market.

Disney will do whatever is best for them. If the Chinese requirements aren't hard to fulfill, then there is no reason to step out of the Chinese market.

 

[Anti-Hero 69]

Also, the funniest thing is that I see the people hating Disney for being an oligopoly and going for this acquisition and calling them a monopoly are sad that the Netflix monopoly is ending. Hey, you asked for competition, here it comes. The streaming wars continue!

Excuse me, but I've never heard anyone refer to Netflix as a monopoly, or even an oligopoly, especially with the existence of Hulu, Amazon, and maybe Sony Crackle.