Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company may sell its TV assets...

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while seeking a strategic partner for ESPN.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Ron%20DeSantis

Disney considers selling ABC and finding partner for ESPN as CEO Bob Iger warns TV assets 'may not be core' to future of company - as he insists he does not want to be 'drawn into any culture wars' during feud with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

[Charles Knox]

Disney 's movies are underperforming at the box office and they are probably needing cash and quick. Things are getting so bad, an independent faith film is challenging their big tentpole movies.

With the new DirecTV deal in place, METV would probably like to buy the Wonderful World Of Disney, cartoon library for Toon In With ME and of course MASH from them.

[blueberrymuffin]

Originally Posted by Charles Knox

With the new DirecTV deal in place, METV would probably like to buy the Wonderful World Of Disney, cartoon library for Toon In With ME and of course MASH from them.

What is the DirecTV deal?

[favoriteshow]

Originally Posted by blueberrymuffin

What is the DirecTV deal?

DirecTV started carrying MeTV but not its sister digitnets. Such a big deal.

[favoriteshow]

I think Hearst would make a good owner of ABC and its owned stations as they already own part of ESPN. In Baltimore, ABC could move back to WBAL and there would be network affiliation switches elsewhere again with most of Hearst stations aligned with ABC then.

Hulu could be sold to Dish and Sling could merge into Hulu.

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Bob Iger Shifts From Building an Empire to a Disney Yard Sale

Bob Iger shifts from building an empire to a Disney yard sale

Bob Iger built Disney into the world’s most powerful entertainment company by acquiring Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. Now he’s looking to downsize.

Iger put roughly a third of the company up for sale this week, declaring Disney’s linear TV assets noncore. That includes TV networks ABC, FX and Freeform. He also said Disney is looking for a strategic partner for ESPN — though he’s not willing to sell the whole thing — and the company is already looking to sell or restructure its TV and streaming business in India.

It’s a stunning if inevitable turn of events for an executive who spent so much of his career working in TV, and for a company that relied on cable networks for the majority of its profit. Before the pandemic, Disney’s media networks generated 35%, or $24.8 billion, of company revenue and more than 50%, or $7.5 billion, of its operating income.

Yet the accelerating decline of cable TV has limited Iger’s options. He thought he’d solved this problem with Disney+ and Hulu, his two mass-market streaming services. But his streaming business is expected to register a loss of about $800 million in the company’s just-ended third quarter.

Management chased streaming subscribers at unsustainably low prices to goose the launch of Disney+ in 2019 and is now seeking to raise prices without alienating customers. (Disney+ lost 4 million subscribers last quarter.)

Iger put up a for-sale sign during an interview with CNBC in Sun Valley, Idaho, home to an annual summit of the media and tech elite organized by the investment bank Allen & Co. The conference has long served as an incubator for some of the media industry’s most high-profile deals — and a source of endless photos of executives walking in Patagonia vests.

It’s not yet clear how serious Iger is about selling entire TV networks. ABC, for example, is key to retaining NBA rights. FX has been a key supplier of programming to Hulu, which Iger plans to keep and fold into Disney+.

Yet Iger’s CNBC interview was unmistakably a distress signal. Disney is contractually obligated to buy Comcast Corp.’s one-third stake in Hulu in a deal that would value the business at least at $27.5 billion. It’s also wrestling with a colossal debt pile stemming from its $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019.

A sale of the TV business could fetch around $8 billion, according to Wells Fargo analyst Steve Cahall — which would largely offset the cost of acquiring the piece of Hulu it doesn't yet own. Most of the potential suitors for linear TV networks are financial entities, like private equity firms, that would milk them for cash as they decline into obscurity.


The list of interested parties in ESPN is longer, and could include tech giants like Apple, as well as sports companies like Fanatics. The streaming side of the sports giant, ESPN+, remains more of a niche business. But Disney continues to signal it will offer all of ESPN outside of the cable bundle in the near future.

Iger came back to Disney last November a conquering hero eager to rescue the company from the era of Bob Chapek (his successor and predecessor). He said he’d only stick around for two years, a deadline few took seriously given Iger’s inability to relinquish control during his first stint as CEO.

After receiving a two-year contract extension this past week, Iger has three more years to clean up a big mess that also includes a slowdown in the company’s theme-park business, a series of misses for the company’s film division and the strike by Hollywood actors and writers against all of the media companies.

Rumors have long swirled that Iger will end up selling all of Disney to Apple. It’s still hard to imagine Iger selling Disney to anyone. He was always a builder — not a seller. But Bob the builder is doing a lot more cutting this time around.

Iger’s comments should spook his peers. If a diversified company like Disney is bailing on its cable networks, what does that mean for companies like Paramount Global and Warner Bros Discovery Inc.? They still make almost all of their profit from networks that are shrinking.