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Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

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Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#251

Post by stordoff »

EnderMB wrote: post #154
Mindwipe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US network is being spun off. But for instance they will own Sky - the biggest commercial broadcaster in Europe, and the UK's second biggest ISP...

In addition to this, Sky Sports is pretty much the only game in town in the UK when it comes to sports. Sky hold an insane amount of power in football, to the point where if they want a game to be played at a different time/day the fixture will change. The sheer amount of money in the Premier League today is down to Sky. This is a linear market that I think Disney will be really interested in. It's an area where Netf…

BT Sport has made some in-roads, but Sky is definitely a dominate player.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#252

Post by jimmaswell »

jandrese wrote: post #189
danmaz74 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, capitalism converging to few monopolies or quasi-monopolies controlling everything was one of the big arguments anti-capitalists used to use when I was younger: that if it's got to be monopolies or quasi-monopolies, then it's better if they are State-controlled monopolies.

State controlled is little better than privately held. In a public company only people who own a stake get a vote, and their vote is proportional to how much of a stake they own (the rich get most of the votes). In a State owned company every taxpayer is a stakeholder, the main difference being that you get exactly 1 vote no matter how much you pay in taxes. But voting is a very inefficient way to steer a company, pr…

It really seems to me that state-run monopolies are much more than "little" better than free-market monopolies in practice today. Compare the service from a private ISP that's the only provider in a region to how well municipal broadband works out. You've also probably never sent a plain letter through UPS or Fedex, even though neither of those is a monopoly yet the USPS is essentially a state run monopoly on that kind of mail - if state run monopolies are supposed to be so much less efficient than private companies in competition then people should be sending all their letters through those instead of USPS.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#253

Post by stordoff »

Mindwipe wrote: post #109
exelius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the top line of the press release: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/walt-disney-company-acquire...

The US network is being spun off. But for instance they will own Sky - the biggest commercial broadcaster in Europe, and the UK's second biggest ISP...

IIRC, it's the only only pay-TV provider available in large parts of the UK (cable TV is only available in about 60% of the country last time I checked).

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#254

Post by roryisok »

jandrese wrote: post #193
roryisok wrote: post #110

fingers crossed for firefly season 2

This is a monkey paw thing where you get it, but it's the bland by-the-numbers Disney version carefully built by committee to avoid offending the largest number of people and just revisits all of the same ideas from the first season.

I don't think so. Firefly is no more offensive than Guardians of the Galaxy, that's a Disney property

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#255

Post by pdog »

longerthoughts wrote: post #243
pdog wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of the two articles even mention the Disney-21st Century Fox deal. What specifically about this deal should be of concern for antitrust regulators?

For one, it would give the resulting entity a majority stake in Hulu and control over a lot of content that they could potentially yank from the likes of Netflix. It's also the default position of regulators that horizontal mergers are bad for competition, so I'd expect a fight regardless of the ultimate basis [1]. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

Is the majority stake in Hulu really an antitrust concern? Streaming services are pretty competitive and Netflix has plenty of their own exclusive content.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#256

Post by otakucode »

jakozaur wrote: post #24

Sane antitrust regulations should kill this deal. It is bad for everybody other than shareholders of those two companies. In particular bad for customers, other companies and employees: https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2172555... https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21695385-profits-are...

Is that ever the standard used? I don't believe the concerns of the customers, other companies, and definitely not employees are ever considered when evaluating antitrust violations. Normally they're looking at whether the marketplace would be reduced to a monopoly or whether non-insurance companies are using abusive tactics, right?

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#257

Post by regulation_d »

cuckcuckspruce wrote: post #38
wallace_f wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it that this is so much less anti-competitive than bundling an OS with a web browser?

Because Microsoft, for all their bad acting, didn't have a hand up the backside of enough senators to use as sockpuppets. Disney does. They write our IP laws.

The year is 2928. Machines have taken over. Disney lobby-bots are still arguing, "1000 years should definitely still be considered a 'limited time' under the Constitution."

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#258

Post by indubitable »

doomlaser wrote: post #172
indubitable wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting datum is that movie ticket sales are actually down, big time . [1] Movies hit their peak, in tickets sold, way back in 2002. We're down 26% since then. Factor in population increases which should have resulted in a roughly proportional increase in ticket sales and it's shocking how bad movies are doing. But record breaking sales...? That's gross receipts or tickets_sold x cost_per_ticket . Ticket sales…

> Movie companies seem to be in completely denial about the change in quality being the source of their problems Don't you think on demand internet distribution is the true source of the problem? Record sales were at their peak in 2002 too. https://kyigt1bcans3ofli94di0kch-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

Streaming services like Netflix didn't even exist, as streaming services, until sometime around 2007. And prior to that the vast majority of people would not have had the hardware/connection to be able to stream effectively in any case. Movies had already long since been in decline. Similarly, the time line is also another bit of evidence that piracy is also not the problem.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#259

Post by mrpippy »

exelius wrote: post #106
sailfast wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the press release they indicate FS1 / FS2 will stay with the broadcast news and broadcast networks. They will keep the regional sports networks.

Yeah, RSNs are a different game. Sports in general is in decline; the RSNs are likely included to fill out ESPN's content deals to build a national sports streaming service. Things like Big 10 network have enough restrictions that the content could not be rebroadcast on ESPN or separate services.

Slightly ironic that ESPN itself has significantly scaled back baseball coverage/studio shows this year, yet they now own RSNs who have rights for 16 (by my count) MLB teams

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#260

Post by guntars »

ralmidani wrote: post #202

As an American, I've always found it mind-boggling how average Americans cheer these types of M/As. The argument is that consolidation leads to more "efficiency" and "synergy", but those benefits are usually not passed down to consumers (actually, market domination allows a company like Disney to price-gouge even more on movies and merchandise).

This is basically just entertainment (Fox News included) so they can do whatever they want. If this was healthcare, for example, it would require a bit more scrutiny IMO.
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