[SymbiSpidey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trivial Psychic

1. The government still has yet to sign off on it. Until they approve, it doesn't matter what Disney and Fox agreed to, someone else can swoop in and make an offer. This sort of thing happens in sports all the time, where trades and signings are agreed to in term, but end up nullified because there was no approval by the league and whatever their CBA was.

2. Why would Marvel get their characters back? Fox owns the media rights, and until Fox relinquishes them, or is purchased, they are owned by Fox. Is there something in the terms of the original arrangement that says that Marvel would retain in the event of a Fox Media collapse or sale? Michael Jackson owned the rights to the Beatles for years, but Paul McCartney didn't just magically get them back when he died. MJ's estate did, who in turned used them as collateral to pay off Michael's debt and ensure his charities and children were taken care of.

3. Comcast is already willing to front 8 billion more than Disney, and up it's bid to 100 billion dollars should Disney wants to start a bidding war for it. And in cash no less. Say what you will, but that's not chump change. This aggressiveness by Comcast says to me that there could very well be some stake in the Marvel franchises, because why the hell someone would want to put up that kind of money for Fox's news and sport networks (which Disney was planning to scuttle anyways after the acquisition) is beyond me. They're certainly not interested because they see a goldmine in the Alien and Predator franchises.

4. I'm not sure what happened in the cases of Paramount or Time Warner, but lots of network providers (cable companies, as well companies like Hulu and Netflix, which can be loosely affiliated as such) are creating their own studios in order to brand their own original programming. Just the way the world is going. Why pay someone to do something for you when you can just as easily do it yourself.

Well, the problem with Comcast buying Fox has less to do with the entertainment properties and moreso its stake in Hulu.

Right now, stake in Hulu is split evenly between Disney, Fox and Comcast (through NBCU) at 30% (Time Warner owns the other 10%). If any of the other two buy Fox, they would have majority ownership in Hulu. This isn't really a problem with Disney. They have plans for their own streaming service, but their streaming service will be centered around family entertainment, while Hulu would be more adult-oriented (presumably where their Marvel Netflix shows would go). That's fair game, since Disney would probably bolster Hulu's growth with its own TV shows and movies.

But Comcast is a cable service provider, and you can probably see why a cable service provider owning majority stake in an online streaming service is a huge conflict of interest. Granted, the government could easily impose conditions on Comcast to prevent them from stifling Hulu's growth in favor of their own cable service (much as they did when Comcast acquired NBCU). But because net neutrality's been repealed, Comcast can also go in the opposite direction and give Hulu unfair advantages over Amazon Prime, Netflix and any other streaming services on their network. This is an even bigger problem considering Comcast is already the most dominant cable service provider in the U.S. Essentially, Comcast would be competing with themselves.

As much as we were weary about Disney acquiring Fox and creating a monopoly, Comcast would be far, far worse.

EDIT: Also, to elaborate, Comcast actually put in a higher bid than Disney did back in December, but Fox accepted Disney's offer over regulatory concerns that would come from Comcast trying to buy them out. I guess Comcast figures they can just throw more money at them to sweeten the deal, but it's irrelevant if they don't think the deal will be approved in the first place.