Fox has been "holding talks to sell most of the company" to Disney, "leaving behind a media company tightly focused on news and sports," according to sources. Fox is "said to believe that a more tightly focused group of properties around news and sports could compete more effectively in the current marketplace." Disney "would not buy Fox' sports programming assets in the belief that combining them with ESPN could be seen as anti-competitive from an antitrust standpoint," and it "would not buy the Fox News or Business channel." Disney also would "not purchase Fox' local broadcasting affiliates," according to sources (CNBC.com, 11/6).
Needham & Co. analyst Laura Martin said the Fox assets would allow Disney to “bring more assets direct to consumer.” She also noted the deal could be worth $20-30B “depending how tough Fox wants to be with the negotiations.” Former FCC Omnibus Broadband Initiative Exec Dir Blair Levin said of a potential deal not involving Fox Sports assets, “I don’t know that the antitrust regulators would regard sports as a separate content network, but … they might since (ESPN) is the primary network that people watch live and therefore, that changes everything in terms of audience and advertising share” (“Power Lunch,” CNBC, 11/6).
