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Should Disney buy Time Warner?

This may seem counter to conventional wisdom, but these kinds of mergers tend to be bad for stock price. Consider what the AOL Time Warner merger did. Disney is a very successful company as it is. It has already absorbed a lot of companies lately like Pixar and Lucasfilm. I don't own Disney stock (I wish I did), but if I was a voting stockholder, I'd vote no. The debt load would be tremendous, and the benefits really aren't there. As I've said many times on this subject, I believe it would serve the Tim Warner stockholders best to sell off parts of the company, rather than attempt to sell the whole thing. That seems to be the strategy they're currently employing.
 
Time-Warner itself was a merger that shouldn't have happened in the first place. Combining with Walt Disney would be just another excuse for the top dogs to stuff their pockets again and jump with their golden parachutes, leaving everyone else twisting in the wind.
 
I just can't see it happening either...it'll be just another pointless merger that will eventually cost people jobs and homogenize content even more.
 
On the other hand, buying the Warner Brothers studio is a great idea, and I'd support that. That part of it would work. But the rest of the company would be a mistake.
 
Given that Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are rivals, the animation business is out of the question.

Maybe. Disney has become a great curator for many famous characters, including Kermit. In fact, they'd be a far better repository of American culture than if TW was sold to a foreign company, as was Universal and Columbia.
 
CBS and Turner would be better. They share sporting events and personalities. Same with news personalities. Just not sure if it would hurt the stock of both companies or not.
 
I see nothing for Disney in this, except as something for Iger to distract his shareholders from his middling management of a company he is being paid a kings ransom to manage.

So maybe it will happen after all.
 
The only reason Disney would want to buy Time Warner is to lock up NBA rights exclusively, and nothing else.
 
I was thinking that Viacom should buy ABC, in exchange for Comedy Central. Problem is, National Amusements controls Viacom and CBS ever since their early 2006 split. In that case, CBS should give its TV library back to Paramount (including "Star Trek", which Paramount holds the film rights to) before getting spun off, because the FCC would crack down on duopolies in LA, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. (see Sinclair for more details)

Time Warner has a strong chance of merging with CBS because of their CW network joint venture. If anything, Cartoon Network should get sold to Fox because Adult Swim owns the rights to off-net cartoon reruns.
 
I was thinking that Viacom should buy ABC, in exchange for Comedy Central. Problem is, National Amusements controls Viacom and CBS ever since their early 2006 split. In that case, CBS should give its TV library back to Paramount (including "Star Trek", which Paramount holds the film rights to) before getting spun off, because the FCC would crack down on duopolies in LA, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. (see Sinclair for more details)


Time Warner has a strong chance of merging with CBS because of their CW network joint venture. If anything, Cartoon Network should get sold to Fox because Adult Swim owns the rights to off-net cartoon reruns.
I can see both mergers happening I see CBS Corp. merging with Time Warner mainly because of its relationship with both of them owning the CW network, also both CBS and Turner jointly produces the NCAA tournament, a Viacom/ABC Merger will happen too I seen them just getting the ABC Network, ABC News, ESPN on ABC (ABC Sports in my book), and 8 TV stations plus I see Viacom acquiring Disney's stake in the A&E Networks, in return Disney will acquire the MTV Networks. There would be no way that Viacom would get Disney's stake in ESPN, because they're Disney's cash cow and that's something Disney wouldn't want to give up. Here's what a Time Warner CBS combination would control:

CBS TV Network

CBS News

CBS Sports (combination of CBS and Turner's sports divisions)

The CW

Warner Bros.
And more.

Viacom/ABC would control the following media properties:

ABC TV Network

ABC News

ABC's sports rights

Their stake in Fusion TV

Paramount Pictures, and Television

8 TV stations (WABC/New York City, WPVI/Philadelphia, WTVD/Raleigh, WLS/Chicago, KTRK/Houston, KABC/Los Angeles, KFSN/Fresno, and KGO/San Francisco)

50% of the A&E Networks

Management at CBS and Time Warner will not change once the merger is approved. But once the Viacom/ABC merger is approved, here's the changes I expect:

Ben Sherwood, will become Chairman/CEO of ABC

James Goldston, will remain as president at ABC News

Jon Miller (currently president of programming at NBC Sports) will be hired to lead what will become ABC Sports (currently ESPN on ABC)

Otherwise nothing else changes, those will be the 2 biggest media mergers I see happening within the next year or 2, Time Warner buying CBS, and Viacom buying ABC. Speaking of Viacom/ABC I see them trading KFSN/Fresno for KNXV/Phoenix, and I see them trading WTVD/Raleigh to Cox Media Group for WSOC/Charlotte, and WSB/Atlanta.
 
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You mean Sinclair? I agree

No, I mean Dumont. The company has been dormant since the 1950's, but I think it should be revived and should buy all four networks, every Hollywood studio, all record labels, and EVERYTHING.

I realize that's a really stupid idea, but it's only slightly more stupid than most of the other ideas being bandied about. Forget half-way stupid, if we're going to with stupid, I say go all the way to absolutely TOTALLY stupid.
 
No, I mean Dumont. The company has been dormant since the 1950's, but I think it should be revived and should buy all four networks, every Hollywood studio, all record labels, and EVERYTHING.

I realize that's a really stupid idea, but it's only slightly more stupid than most of the other ideas being bandied about. Forget half-way stupid, if we're going to with stupid, I say go all the way to absolutely TOTALLY stupid.
Yeah, uh that's not going to happen
 
For whatever it's worth, it was Paramount Pictures' part-ownership of DuMont that helped kill that network. Paramount had invested in Allen B. DuMont Television Laboratories back in the 30's; though they cut off any financial support to the company after about 1940, they installed one of their bean counters (a man named Paul Rayburn or something similar) above Dr. DuMont himself in the company. Rayburn's job was to restrict DuMont's finances to the strangulation point, which he did; and because of Paramount's ownership of KTLA in Los Angeles (which would not carry DuMont's network shows) DuMont could not obtain the full complement of big-city O & O's the other networks had. The average age of Paramount's executives of that era was 75-80; they wanted to prove to themselves television would never work; and they did. (Paramount Pictures produced virtually nothing for TV until buying out Lucille Ball's Desilu Productions around 1970.)
 
The average age of Paramount's executives of that era was 75-80; they wanted to prove to themselves television would never work; and they did. (Paramount Pictures produced virtually nothing for TV until buying out Lucille Ball's Desilu Productions around 1970.)

It's an interesting story. Most of the Hollywood studios felt the same way. However, Paramount was split into two companies: Paramount Pictures and United Paramount Theaters. The man in charge of United Paramount was Leonard Goldenson, who then bought the struggling ABC TV & Radio network. He renamed UPT the ABC Theaters, and began diversifying his businesses. But even Goldenson, who had worked in the Hollywood movie business, couldn't get the now-independent Paramount Pictures to supply him with content for his TV network. But he found a willing partner in Walt Disney, who created TV-only content for ABC. So the roots of Disney's connection to ABC is very deep. Warner, on the other hand, also came late to the TV table. But not as late as Paramount.
 
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