Lots of dollars being thrown around in media land these days. After the court ruled in favor of the AT&T / Time-Warner acquisition, Comcast put a $65B all cash bid in on Fox, trying to pull it away from Disney. It’s now being reported that Disney has upped their bid to $71.3B and Fox is tentatively happy to take their money.
This isn’t final. Comcast could always re-bid and both the Disney and Fox shareholders need to give approval, even if their respective boards have already signed off on the deal.
Which is to say, things are once more looking like Marvel’s film/TV franchises are going to be unified again. Deadpool / Spider-Man – The Motion Picture could still happen… eventually.
Of course, there are bigger chips on the table for this acquisition. Fox holds a 30% share in Hulu. Guess what? Disney and Comcast both hold 30% shares, too. The winner is going to wind up with a controlling interest and we all know what the Netflix valuation is these days.
Meanwhile, Time Warner (which is to say, AT&T) owns a meager 10%. Coincidence that DC is starting their own streaming service and not looking to do programming for Hulu? Probably not.
Fatal acceptance that Disney will control all of media that it can in order to be competitive in a streaming world.
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