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New Deals Shaking Up Major Media Today
Time Warner has been busy lately shuffling the decks and sprucing things up.
Looks like the Google/Time Warner AOL deal and the Viacom/CBS split-off from last month were just a start...and their actions are sending out large ripples into the vast media pond for new deals to be made.
First, as announced just this afternoon, CBS and Time Warner decided to form a new TV network (dubbed the "The CW", combining "The WB" with CBS-owned UPN). This merged entity will officially launch this Fall. The WB and UPN will continue to broadcast their regular schedules until that time. It should give the formerly separate networks more muscle to compete.
Next, looks like ABC/Disney radio group sell-off possible may happen after all (which is rumored by many publications to be near a closed deal). If the 72-station deal affecting 25 top markets nationally is approved, it should provide fresh cash (projected by analysts at $3 billion) to help set up Disney's next move: fixing the lucrative but fractured distribution relationship with animation studio Pixar, which is scheduled to conclude later this year.
A number of publications, including The New York Times, are reporting that the Walt Disney Company is poised to announce a bid for Pixar, possibly today. Sources say the Disney board has approved an offer of about $59 a share for Pixar, valuing the company at nearly $7 billion. That would, at once, make Steve Jobs, Pixar's chief, Disney's largest shareholder and, according to reports, give him a seat on the Disney board.
(UPDATE at 5:50PM: According to the Associated Press, The Walt Disney Co. has announced it is buying longtime partner Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion in a deal designed to restore Disney's animation domination while also vaulting Pixar CEO Steve Jobs into a powerful role at the media conglomerate. Disney will buy Pixar in an all-stock transaction that makes Jobs Disney's largest shareholder. Jobs will also join Disney's board.)
For Disney, whose own historic animation unit has faltered lately, the acquisition of Pixar would add not just the luster of the industry's top animation company but also a promise of future characters for Disney's theme parks.
Bring one of the world's leading media innovators -- Steve Jobs -- officially into the Disney fold sounds like a very smart move. And it looks like many other agree. Jobs, who runs both Apple and Pixar, could, as a Disney board member, work to transform Disney from an analog company to one that is at the forefront of the new digital technologies. Almost every media conglomerate is seeking to leap aboard the digital express. Who better than Jobs--the guy who brought us the iPod -- to put Disney back at the front of the pack?
NY Times story (free log-on required)
Who Is Steve Jobs?
posted by Unknown @ Tuesday, January 24, 2006,
