Broadcast-streaming. The Comcast bid has been waved through by the UK regulat0r, and Fox’s offer to sell Sky News to Disney has been deemed sufficient to address Murdoch issues around media plurality involved in a Fox acquisition of the 60% of Sky it does not already own. This paves the way for a bidding war. Fox’s current bid of £10.75 a share values Sky at £18.5bn, while Comcast has tabled a competing offer of £22bn. But, then, there’s the larger game of bidding for the 21st Century Fox parent. Will the ultimate winner be Disney (cool with US regulators) or Comcast (more problematic)? You may be bit confused by the permutations e.g. if Disney wins, the Murdoch family not only bags $60bn of shares but keeps the highly-profitable Fox News and Fox Sports. You should settle for the certainty that – by end-2018 – Fox and and Sky will be committed to new ownership, possibly separately, but most likely together. And the brand of Disney’s planned Netflix killer for 2019 will be either Sky, or Hulu (which it would control if it buys Fox, or Disney itself. It will be a long hot summer.
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Will Comcast or Disney reach for the Sky?
