Comcast fights Disney for Fox assets
Cable giant bids $ 65B one day after approval of Time Warner deal
NEW YORK — Comcast made a $ 65 billion bid Wednesday for Fox’s entertainment businesses, setting up a battle with Disney to become the next mega- media company.
The bid comes just a day after a federal judge cleared AT& T’s takeover of Time Warner and rejected the government’s argument that it would hurt competition in cable and satellite TV and jack up costs to consumers for streaming TV and movies. The ruling signaled that Comcast could win regulatory approval, too; its bid for Fox shares many similarities with the AT& T- Time Warner deal.
Comcast says its cash bid is 19 percent higher than the value of Disney offer as of Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal and others reported earlier that Comcast had lined up $ 60 billion in cash to challenge Disney for media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s company. Disney’s offer was for $ 52.5 billion when it was made in December, though the final value will depend on the stock price at the closing.
“This is a golden offer that will put considerable pressure on [ Disney CEO Bob] Iger and Disney to step up their game on another bid,” GBH Insights analyst Dan Ives said. “This is even higher than the Street thought, which speaks to Comcast really wanting these key assets.”
The battle for Twenty- First Century Fox comes as traditional entertainment companies try to amass more content to compete better with technology companies such as Amazon and Netflix for viewers’ attention — and dollars.
If the Comcast bid succeeds, a major cable distributor would control even more channels on its lineup and those of its rivals. That could lead to higher cable bills or make it more difficult for online alternatives to emerge, though there is not yet evidence of either happening following other mergers. For Disney, a successful Comcast bid could make Disney’s planned streaming service less attractive, without the Fox video.
Cable companies like Comcast are no longer competing only with satellite alternatives such as DirecTV, but also stand- alone services such as Netflix and cable- like online bundles through Sony, AT& T and others.
Disney already started its own sports streaming service and plans an entertainmentfocused one late next year featuring movies and shows from its own studios, which include Marvel, Pixar and “Star Wars” creator Lucasfilm.
With the Fox deal, Disney would get more content for those services — through the studios behind the Avatar movies, “The Simpsons” and “Modern Family,” along with National Geographic. Marvel would get back the characters previously licensed to Fox, reuniting X- Men with the Avengers.
Comcast, meanwhile, has been leading the way in marrying pipes with the entertainment that flows through them. It bought NBCUniversal’s cable channels and movie studio in 2013 and added Dreamworks Animation in 2016.
The Philadelphia company has been tinkering with the traditional cable bundle, offering stand- alone subscriptions for some types of video along with smaller bundles of cable channels delivered over the internet. Comcast has said it will add Netflix to some cable bundles.
Whichever company prevails would also control Fox’s cable and international TV businesses. That’s key for Comcast, which currently doesn’t have an international presence. The Fox television network and some cable channels including Fox News and Fox Business Network would stay with Murdoch’s family under either deal, as with the newspaper and book businesses under a separate company, News Corp.
Disney and Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.