Disney acquiring Fox means big, scary things for film and TV

[babylonsister]

Disney acquiring Fox means big, scary things for film and TV
Here are five reasons the deal is terrifying — and only one of them is increased media consolidation.
By Todd VanDerWerff@[e-mail] Dec 14, 2017, 1:30pm EST


It’s official: Disney has acquired the film and television arms of 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion.

Assuming regulators allow the deal to go through (it’s expected to take at least a year to close), Disney will own the rights to everything from the Avatar movies to FX’s The Americans. Fox, meanwhile, maintains the rights to Fox News, the Fox broadcast network, Fox Sports 1, and the gigantic Fox studio lot in Los Angeles. One of the six core studios that make up Hollywood has effectively been gobbled up by another, the biggest deal of its kind in decades (probably since the 1955 dissolution of RKO, since by the time MGM finally disappeared, it had been ailing for decades, unlike Fox). Variety marks it as the second-biggest merger ever after AOL-Time Warner.

Much casual interest in the sale has been driven by the fact that Disney will now own the film rights to the Marvel comics characters associated with the X-Men and Fantastic Four, which Marvel sold off to Fox long before either was a Disney subsidiary. (Marvel still doesn’t entirely own film rights to the Hulk — solo Hulk movies have to be produced with Universal, which is probably part of why there haven’t been any recently.) But Disney also now owns the rights to a bunch of other well-known cultural properties, including The Simpsons, the Alien franchise, and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Considering that Disney has proved so capable at turning beloved cultural properties into blandly effective hit-producing machines, there are a handful of reasons to be at least cautiously anticipatory about what it might do with all of its new toys.

But for the most part, this deal is a little terrifying. There are myriad reasons, but here are five that are most distressing to me — and only one of them is the incredibly troubling march of further media consolidation!

1) It’s entirely possible the Fox TV network will slowly wither away

One of the assets Disney couldn’t buy from Fox was its broadcast network of the same name, home to everything from The Simpsons to New Girl to The X-Files. The network launched in 1986 and was largely seen as a folly, but by the mid-’90s, it was a mainstay in most American homes, breaking the hegemony of the big three networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC.

Federal Communications Commission regulations state that no one company can own more than one broadcast network, and Disney already owns ABC. This would be fine if Rupert Murdoch and News Corp were simply going to keep running the Fox network as it’s been run until now. But in 2017, there are essentially only two ways to make money as a broadcast network: make it a home for programming already owned by the network’s sister studio (meaning ABC airs mostly programming made by ABC Studios or other Disney sister companies), or make it a home for ridiculously cheap programming (meaning reality shows and news). So it seems unlikely they’ll stay the course, even though early reporting suggests Fox TV will exist much as is for now (though scripted product is expected to decline).

Fox, in essence, can’t pursue option one. If the deal goes through, all of Fox Television’s other assets — including its studio and attached cable networks, of which FX is the most prominent — will belong to Disney. And while there are a few programs on the network that are money-printing machines and will thus continue for at least a little while (The Simpsons and Family Guy chief among them), and a few other programs that it’s in Disney’s best interests to keep going (like the Marvel co-production The Gifted), there’s no reason for the Fox TV network to keep airing almost everything on its lineup if it won’t be collecting revenue from those shows via other means, like international sales or streaming sales. (Broadcast networks make almost all of their money from selling advertising space, a shrinking market in an era of ratings diminishment; essentially every other revenue stream is funneled toward the studios that produce TV shows.)

more...


https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/14/16764472/disney-fox-deal-merger

[Glorfindel]

1. K&R n/t

[Algernon Moncrieff]

2. There is a pretty solid post on this in Teh Lounge

The essence is that Disney wants Fox Studio partly for some of the Marvel properties they don't already have (Deadpool) but largely as an outlet for product that they don't want to slap the "Disney" label on (read: R-rated fare).

[d_r]

3. x men and fantastic four

in mcu

[Kablooie]

4. At least the Kleig lights can go back in front of Star Wars.

[GreenEyedLefty]

5. I'd rather Disney buy Fox than the other way around.

This isn't scary to me. But then, I don't watch a ton of movies or TV.

[Blue_Adept]

6. Fox was going to divest of this stuff one way or another

That much is simple; they know they can't compete where things are going with the IP that they have. They're also a victim of buying up a lot of stuff and expanding without enough of a plan for the past decade. FXX alone made it clear that they were just adding channels to fluff things up.

There HAS to be a contraction on their part because of this.

But yeah, considering some of the other possibilities for acquiring the Fox assets? Better than Sony, Universal, etc.

[Buns_of_Fire]

7. It's a shame Fox is retaining its "news" channel.

I'd like to see Donald Duck replace Sean Hannity.

[yallerdawg]

8. "Banana Republic."

The "Dear Leader" make sure his propaganda Faux News arm is unaffected, so deal is cool. A horizontal merger of monolithic monopolism.

"Dear Leader" hates CNN. Vertical acquisition for ATT-Time Warner combination is blocked by law suits on behalf of "Dear Leader" to ensure CNN is left dangling in the wind - or no deal.

Government oversight prior to the Dotard administration was supportive of vertical mergers and skeptical of horizontal acquisitions.

Prior to the Dotard, the president injected himself (still no herself, of course) in these corporate matters in regards to national interests.

Now, this is about self-interest.

Just one more assault on our democracy.