Executives at Disney and Fox spoke for the past few weeks but are no longer negotiating, CNBC reported.
Disney
has spoken to 21st Century Fox about acquiring most of its assets in
a move that, should it come to fruition, would allow the Rupert
Murdoch-controlled company to focus almost exclusively on sports and
news, according to CNBC.
The
negotiations come at a pivotal time, as Disney is readying a
streaming product to rival Netflix and could use movie and TV content
from 21st Century Fox to do so.
As for 21st Century Fox, it is trying
to purchase European satellite TV service Sky, which would help it
distribute both news and sports, along with all other content.
A
21st Century Fox spokesperson had no comment and Disney did not
immediately respond to a request for comment. The report, though,
caused shares of 21st Century Fox to spike 7 percent in midday
trading on Monday.
Executives
at Disney and Fox spoke for the past few weeks but are no longer
negotiating, David Faber of CNBC reported Monday. He added that
negotiations could begin again but that there's no guarantee a deal
will get done.
For
Fox, a deal to unload its TV and movie studio on Disney would mean
partially exiting a rapidly changing space where competition suddenly
includes richly funded digital companies like Amazon.com, Facebook,
Google and Netflix. News and sports, on the other hand, remain
slightly more predictable businesses.
Disney's
need for content, meanwhile, has never been greater, given the
streaming business it is creating with its acquisition of BAMTech in
August is meant to go head-to-head with Netflix.
Disney,
in fact, is pulling its Pixar and Disney-branded content from Netflix
so that consumers desiring those shows and movies will have incentive
to subscribe to Disney's upcoming service, which will also include
Marvel and Star
Wars product
and could conceivably add movies and shows from Fox at a later date.
Read the original article on: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com
No comments:
Post a Comment