Comcast reaches for the stars
p2pnet.net News:- “Pity Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner. First Steve Jobs packed up Pixar Animation Studios and left the Mouse House in a huff. Now the cable guy is banging on the door with a $50 billion check in his hand.”
That’s about the size of it, and that’s the way the Mercury News’ Dawn C. Chmielewski describes Comcast’s bid for Disney here.
But Eisner’s troubles aside it, “could mean higher prices for cable-TV subscribers, argued consumer advocates,” she quotes Gene Kimmelman, a policy director of the Consumers Union:
“Disney has an enormous package of extremely popular, marquee programming and a national network that would now be owned by the largest cable distributor in the country, which has little to no competition in most communities The potential impact is enormous.”
That, too, is about the size of it.
Comcast offered to exchange 0.78 shares of its stock for each Disney share, and to assume $11.9 billion of the company’s debt.
However, “The Disney board issued a terse response to Comcast’s overture, saying it would ‘carefully evaluate’ the offer,” Chmielewski states. “Meanwhile, Disney executives continued with a planned two-day meeting with institutional investors and analysts at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
“Comcast’s studio grab is designed to counter the competitive threat posed by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which controls both satellite television services in the United States, 20th Century Fox Studio and the Fox News and Sports networks. Cable companies worry that Murdoch will develop exclusive Fox entertainment and sports content for its satellite operations, DirecTV and EchoStar Communications; placing local cable services at a disadvantage.
“A prospective Disney acquisition would give Comcast a hedge against Murdoch, offering vast entertainment assets that include the Disney, Miramax and Touchstone film studios, the ABC broadcast network, and popular cable networks like ESPN, A&E and Lifetime. And it would position Comcast to offer advanced products, from an improved on-demand movie service to exclusive shows in the new, ultra-vivid high-definition television format.”
February 13th, 2004 at 12:44 pm
According to Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, Comcast has raised many of the same issues they’ve been bringing to light. http://www.savedisney.com/news/comcast_comment.asp
For more great information on the problems Disney is facing and the issues with Eisner, check out Roy Disney’s web site: http://www.savedisney.com Especially Roy’s letter of resignation http://www.savedisney.com/letters/
On a related note, the Legacy Animation website, http://www.legacyanimation.net , has been unreachable for a few days. Legacy Animation consists of Disney animators who were fired when Disney recently dissolved their 2D traditional animation department. I don’t know why their website is down.