I think we are years beyond that being an issue for all but the most dedicated Luddite.
And there are likely those who think the earth is flat. There are plenty of uneducated and ill-informed people everywhere.
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Iger floats possibility of Disney selling ABC
- Thread starter michael hagerty
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For someone like me who can have a basic basic cable package costing $50 a month, which is still a lot, maybe it's not a problem, but people are cutting the cord because cable is too expensive. If they're not where an antenna works, then streaming becomes the answer.
Even then as mentioned; broadcast rights for major leagues have become unsustainable, especially when the league/teams own an increasing percentage of the in-game ad revenue. Most of the networks only own the inventory in the pre, post, and halftime portions of the broadcasts.
Gosh when was it; I believe 2005? ABC decided to leave the sports business and move what rights remained to ESPN. I remember the incident because a good friend was working for a mobile truck business (NMT) bidding on doing another season of trucks for ABC. In order to get an exclusive deal, ABC required that this particular truck company buy all of the worthless, aging ABC-owned SD production trucks, along with a substantial discount on renting trucks for all the ABC Sports events. So NMT swallows hard, and does the deal, sending out a press release that NMT is now the exclusive production truck supplier for ABC in a multi-year deal. What they didn't know, is ABC was getting out of sports, and they got NMT to effectively pay ABC for the rights to nothing.
As I recall, Iger already went on the record prior as being concerned about looking into the future regarding local and network TV viability. He just articulated it that much more. I'm sure there have been suitors sniffing around looking for ways to make something work, but getting financing for broadcast TV-anything is becoming tougher by the day. Private Equity wants nothing to do with traditional TV, and neither do banks because they don't think there's a future. Most companies trying to catch a bigger fish don't have big enough revolving credit lines to cover a multi-billion dollar purchase, and a merger would be out of the question.
Hell, I still work with some of them even today.
All true, and all the more reason for Iger to move now, rather than later, as the TV assets devalue by the day. I think he can get a deal done. I would not want to be Comcast, Paramount or News Corp in a few years trying to do the same.
The question in my mind is another chicken and egg dilemma, that every network O&O will face: Do you break up the assets, and sell the network separately to the O&O stations, or do you insist on a package deal? Double-edged sword: The O&O's and affiliates depend on the network programming, but that's a completely different expense and revenue model, one that likely couldn't be run by a traditional operator of TV stations. The two sides are different operations, but yet so dependent on the other. Whoever was to buy the network, would lose the cross-promotion and potential ad sales tied into programming carried on Disney+. Essentially whoever bought ABC would need to jump into the expensive startup streaming pool from scratch. That would totally suck for them. Whoever bought the TV group separately, would lose the security of Mother Disney and ABC being there during brutal retrans negotiations, and any of their local news content being streamed on FAST channels provided by Disney's infrastructure. Oh. not to mention that if broken up, the O&O stations would become just affiliates, having to negotiate a multi-year network carriage deal with ABC, and whoever owned it.
There are no problems with digital TV. Just because you're too cheap to put up an antenna, is not an indication of how DTV performs.
In some cases they're right. Most cable companies don't carry programming from 'diginets' like METV, Cozi, TelXidos, or Oxygen. Those networks are only available Over The Air.
I think you try to sell the network whole, including the station group and the cable assets that you're looking to unload. Maybe unload Fresno and Raleigh independently, but KABC, KGO, KTRK, WLS, WPVI and WABC remain owned stations for the new buyer.
This goes back to where we started this thread. Warner Bros. Discovery has the scale and clout for retransmission negotiations, and is already established in streaming. Malone said he'd love to merge with NBCUniversal, but cable's problematic from a regulatory standpoint. He could do Paramount and pick up CBS, but Shari Redstone doesn't seem interested.
With ABC, he skips the regulatory headaches and all he lacks that he would get from an NBCUni or Paramount deal is a second movie studio. There could be a synergy for CNN/ABC News, or WBD could sell it and apply some of that cash to the ABC deal.
Totally left-field and mostly joking---Disney takes CNN and flashes an evil grin toward the Governor of Florida.
18-49 Demo ratings for TV shows are routinely published. They aren't pretty. But you knew that already.
The top rated scripted show this season on broadcast TV (911 on FOX) had a demo rating of 1.0. That particular show was down 23% from last year. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th scripted shows were all down over 20% as well.
Things have changed fast. Nielsen put out a study in August 2022 saying broadcast viewership (persons 2+) for July 2022 was 9.8% less than July 2021, and cable was down a similar 8.9%, so it isn't only 18-49s who are jumping ship.
Nielsen has interesting data from June addressing this, in a roundabout way. The basic conclusion is that children age 2-17 who were home from school spent less than 10% of their additional time with linear TV networks (cable and broadcast combined).
That suggests Disney Channel and other kid/teen focused networks are struggling, and might explain the reduction in hours for PBS Kids a few months back.
The problem is WMD has $50 BILLION in debt leftover from that merger. They really haven't begun to fix that problem, which has led to countless layoffs and program cuts. This is not the time to take on another new pile of debt.
What you need here is a company with deep pockets and spare cash. Netflix might want a broadcast partner for additional platforms for its content. Maybe a foreign company like Vivendi or Bertlesmann. The last thing we need is another bad merger that leads to bankruptcy.
Fair point. I didn't realize that the WBD debt is actually more than the company's current value. Not good.
Disney+ launched at such a low rate ($5.99/mo) that I grabbed it for the grandkids. Everything the Disney-branded cable channels have, commercial-free. I have to think there's been some migration.
Streaming prices might increase in the future a lot more than they are and see an eventual "return" to OTA TV if prices become unsustainable for people. The reason they are cheap right now is because they want to lure in customers, but the prices they are right now is not sustainable in the long-term.
I’m not the one who claimed without substantiation that CEOs won’t admit to whatever it is you imagine to be true, nor writing multiple cheerleading posts for Fox.
Let's resolve this and leave it behind. I think much of the issue is a confusion about foxes. There are two types of fox... the one bred by the Guy from Down Under that does polarized news... and the one owned by another company, also controlled by the Murdoch family but operated independently under a different division with different management.
So you have the Fox TV network that broadcasts content via many local over-the-air TV stations and does things like reality shows and some sports play-by-play. Then you have the Fox News channel, not broadcast over the air and focused on just news and commentary (and it has a further channel which does all business news as well as audio channels on Sirius XM).
the $ will dry up when FNC's audience starts dying
they don't watch at 11:35, they watch clips on youtube
Anecdotally, I can think of five couples, all under 40 years old, which I know of their TV subscriptions. 4/5 do not subscribe to cable or satellite and subscribe to some combination of Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the others. The remain couple consist of two huge sports fan and subscribe to cable. None have an antenna setup to get OTA TV.
Bob attempted to calm the waters at some of the concerned ABC O&O's:
From FTVLive.com:
www.ftvlive.com
From FTVLive.com:
Trying to Calm The Troops at Disney Stations — FTVLive
Bob Iger tried to calm the ABC employees down after saying he might sell them off. It didn’t work….
www.ftvlive.com
You tell that to all the people are having problems. Some of them post here.
It doesn't matter what some people do. Also, even if I put up a good antenna, the ones that I have don't always work for whatever reason.
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