Disney to acquire 21st Century Fox, Comcast drops out of bidding war

Will this get the Simpsons on Netflix is all I care about?

Johnny Ryall wrote:Will this get the Simpsons on Netflix is all I care about?

No way. It'll go to Disney's upcoming streaming service if anything

Saigon Slick wrote:

Rudolphin wrote:

Saigon Slick wrote:

Rudolphin wrote:

Skippy wrote:Only actor I can see moving over is Ryan Reynolds. Doubt anyone else will

Rudolphin wrote:This gooseberry fool is real strawberry floating bad.

Also this

I understand people's excitement about the Marvel stuff but that really, really shouldn't be the story here. This gooseberry fool is real strawberry floating bad.

I mean you've both said that a number of times - what makes this so earth shatteringly worrying?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit

Monopolies are bad across the board. They benefit no-one except the shareholders of the company possessing one. Regardless of whether Captain A can now meet Lieutenant X, in the real world we are edging ever closer to a situation where all media is owned and controlled by 2 or 3 companies, companies whose only desire is to make money. What reason would these companies possibly have to provide a decent or cost efficient product? If you want superhero films you have to suck up whatever Disney make now. If they decide that superhero films are non-profitable in the future, regardless of artistic quality, they could disappear.

This gooseberry fool is real strawberry floating bad, because this gooseberry fool is strawberry floating Blade Runner.

EDIT: I don't agree with Garth that this requires a separate thread but I'll move over there to discuss this further.

I mentioned monopolies myself a page or two back - no need to link me to the wikipedia page on what a monopoly is, feels a bit passive aggressive(though I am very thin skinned ).

To be fair, you asked and I answered. I didn't see your mention of monopolies and your apparent surprise that I could think this was in any way a bad thing left me, sensibly I believe, to assume you simply didn't know.

Anyhow, Disney do not have a monopoly yet. U.S. anti-monopoly laws prohibit a monopoly from being formed in any area and there are several examples of corporations being broken into several parts throughout the last century as a result of anti-trust laws being broken. Standard Oil Co. in 1911 was dissolved by the government, as was a large railway monopoly in 1904, and tobacco at around the same time. In recent years, 2002 I think, the MLS has been the subject of federal anti-trust legislation stopping the monopolisation of the league under one or several owners. There's no question in my mind that a violation of anti-trust laws by Disney would cause a similar event.

This only holds true if you accept we are living in the same poltical context of 1904, 1911 and 2002. We absolutely are not.

On the point you made about superheroes, Disney now have the monopoly on Marvel characters, which have always sat under one ownership in their original print format, this move only means that this is once again the case on the silver screen after years of terrible financial mismanagement by Marvel in the 1990s. Warner Brothers own DC characters of comparable popularity to Marvel such as Batman, Superman, etc etc. so you don't have to suck up to Disney to make or receive a superhero film. There are also still plenty of independent adaptations of graphic novels doing the round, e.g. Snowpiercer(which is absolutely fantastic by the way), Atomic Blonde from 2017, Blue is the Warmest Color or even Persepolis back in 2007, so that's simply not right.

If you want to watch Marvel, you suck it up. If you want to watch Star Wars, you suck it up. If you want to watch Alien, you suck it up. If you want to watch Avatar, you suck it up.

Disney now controls a greater degree of popular franchises that any other media company on the planet. They have consistently bought out their competitors meaning what they say, goes. If they decide Star Wars is done, it's done. If they decide Alien is done, it's done. Each time they buy a competitor they have less and less reason to produce good content, and each franchise they consume means they have more and more power to, as BIDO says, bypass cinemas and charge consumers exorbitant prices to watch them.

I don't think this buyout realistically brings us any closer to a world where all the information is coming from the same three companies than we were in 1930, when the studio system meant that all of the big films were coming from the same few major studios, or in the pre-cable days of television(especially in America), when CBS, ABC and NBC (BBC, ITV, latterly Channel 4 over here).

Once again, this would only hold true if you believe we are living in the same political and technological age as 1930. Which, you know, we aren't. Corporations hold far, far more power now than they ever have in the history of western democracy. Look at the Net Neutrality thing happening in the US at the moment. Everyone knows this benefits no-one but the communication companies but it looks like it will soon be over-turned because said companies wield so much power and can literally buy the government out. What makes you think the Monopoly Commissions of the world of immune to such tactics?

I wish I shared your ideals. I wish I shared your optimism. I do not. Disney have, over the course of the last decade, bought out competitor after competitor. Will they ever have a true, absolute monopoly? In all likelihood no. Will they push that legislation to its very brink? Of course. Why wouldn't they.

We may never live in an era of a true monopoly a la Blade Runner, but the possibility of an oligopoly is not that at all: I think it's an inevitability.

The Sky deal will be relatively plain sailing from here, the biggest gripe about Rupert Murdoch dead and buried. Where this now leaves Sky News long term however is another matter.

Never thought I'd see the day when the Murdoch's, in particular Rupert, admit defeat in being a dominant player in the UK, and his dream of taking full control of Sky. This is momentous, no doubt about it.

KK wrote:...Rupert Murdoch dead and buried.... This is momentous, no doubt about it.

I’m taking the key points from your post and liking it lots, KK .

All hail Mickey Mouse, the Emperor of Mankind

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:

Lastpostamorph wrote:Discounts at Disneyworld

Why?

I just mean for me.
Not you jerks.

I'd be a little worried if I were Netflix (Amazon less so, as Prime isn't solely reliant on its streaming service).

So now we know what corazon's PhD is.

This means we might get a good Fantastic 4 movie which is a terrible prospect as I hate the Fantastic 4.

Rudolphin wrote:To be fair, you asked and I answered. I didn't see your mention of monopolies and your apparent surprise that I could think this was in any way a bad thing left me, sensibly I believe, to assume you simply didn't know.

I asked for clarification of two posts that said "this is bad," but didn't explain why you thought it was bad - for all I knew you just didn't want a Disney produced Avatar movie. Also "I didn't read your previous posts" doesn't go hand in hand with "I sensibly believed you didn't know," but it's all good, in retrospect I take offence pretty easily so I'm probably seeing condescension where none was intended, sorry.

This only holds true if you accept we are living in the same poltical context of 1904, 1911 and 2002. We absolutely are not.

I agree with you, but the law is the law, regardless of whether or not the current incumbent wants to enact it - as Donald Trump has found out to his cost a couple of times already with the immigrant ban.

If you want to watch Marvel, you suck it up. If you want to watch Star Wars, you suck it up. If you want to watch Alien, you suck it up. If you want to watch Avatar, you suck it up.

There will always be companies that hold a large amount of franchises within their grasp. At the moment, Disney has a lot of the relevant ones, in fact their consistently strong strategy has made Marvel relevant again where it had lost that. That won't always be the case - eventually, Warner Bros. will resurge, comic book movies will ebb away, there'll be a shift in the zeitgeist that will render Disney's franchises less relevant than they previously were. Entertainment is as cyclical as it ever was, is my point. If anything, the reliance on franchise movies is indicative of a wider issue but that's a discussion for another time.

Disney now controls a greater degree of popular franchises that any other media company on the planet. They have consistently bought out their competitors meaning what they say, goes. If they decide Star Wars is done, it's done. If they decide Alien is done, it's done. Each time they buy a competitor they have less and less reason to produce good content, and each franchise they consume means they have more and more power to, as BIDO says, bypass cinemas and charge consumers exorbitant prices to watch them.

The death of the cinema has been predicted by everyone and their dog for decades now - I'll believe it when I see it. Streaming is something I'm less familiar with the mechanics of, but what you describe simply sounds like the continued commercialisation of streaming services as it would occur regardless; streaming services producing and distributing only their own content sounds like the current model that television follows, so while it's not ideal for the consumer who has to pay for more than one subscription, it's going to happen regardless. We'll see whether or not this is the case, or whether it's simply a worst-case-scenario ideal.

Once again, this would only hold true if you believe we are living in the same political and technological age as 1930. Which, you know, we aren't. Corporations hold far, far more power now than they ever have in the history of western democracy. Look at the Net Neutrality thing happening in the US at the moment. Everyone knows this benefits no-one but the communication companies but it looks like it will soon be over-turned because said companies wield so much power and can literally buy the government out. What makes you think the Monopoly Commissions of the world of immune to such tactics?

I wish I shared your ideals. I wish I shared your optimism. I do not. Disney have, over the course of the last decade, bought out competitor after competitor. Will they ever have a true, absolute monopoly? In all likelihood no. Will they push that legislation to its very brink? Of course. Why wouldn't they.

We may never live in an era of a true monopoly a la Blade Runner, but the possibility of an oligopoly is not that at all: I think it's an inevitability.

[/quote]

No we aren't in the same technological age as 1930, or 1970, or even 2010. But politically and socially, we're in exactly the same place we were in 1938. Far right groups are rising to retaliate against the invasive depression that has been ongoing for several years. International tensions are rising, western powers are becoming more isolationist at exactly the point they should be pulling together.

The key difference is that trust in the governments and traditional news outlets of the world is much lower, especially amongst the newer generation, and thanks to technological advances/social media we're seeing more left-field news outlets and on-the-ground reporting than ever before, which actually is a good thing. I choose to believe, based on my experiences of political propaganda, that this will keep our governments honest and beholden to the will of the people where it might not have done in the era of FDR or Kennedy or Reagan or Obama. I hope I'm right, of course.

I don't think that an oligolopoly is an inevitability, so long as we are active in keeping our anti-trust groups and politicians as honest as possible. But I guess we'll agree to disagree on that one.

Green Gecko wrote:So now we know what corazon's PhD is.

History of propaganda and politics in the United States, I'm practising my debating skills for an exam/avoiding studying.

KK wrote:I'd be a little worried if I were Netflix (Amazon less so, as Prime isn't solely reliant on its streaming service).

Netflix have at least managed to built up a solid library of content and have such a massive subscribers base that they should be ok. Hulu is strawberry floated.


I'd imagine it's only a matter of time before Disney try to buy out Sonys remaining interest in Spiderman.

bear wrote:

KK wrote:I'd be a little worried if I were Netflix (Amazon less so, as Prime isn't solely reliant on its streaming service).

Netflix have at least managed to built up a solid library of content and have such a massive subscribers base that they should be ok. Hulu is strawberry floated.


I'd imagine it's only a matter of time before Disney try to buy out Sonys remaining interest in Spiderman.

Well, no because Disney now own the majority of Hulu

Saigon Slick wrote:Stuff

I mean, nothing you say is ridiculous or even wrong in any way. You are correct in a lot of your assertions. Still, I simply can't ascribe to your optimism even though I really, really wish I could. We've already seen oligopolies appear in the consumer goods arena and this has had a negative effect both on consumer rights in the western world and worker rights in third world countries.* I haven't seen any compelling arguments as to why this isn't going to happen in other, potentially even more worrying spheres such as the media and the Disney takeover is testament to this.

*Et voila

I think all our problems would be sorted if Fox retained the rights to the Fantastic 4. That way Fox could make a TV show about them that could be shown on Netflix after Disney pull all their stuff from them. Also I won't have to put up with their toxic presence when I'm watching Marvel movies. It's win-win.

Tomous wrote:

bear wrote:

KK wrote:I'd be a little worried if I were Netflix (Amazon less so, as Prime isn't solely reliant on its streaming service).

Netflix have at least managed to built up a solid library of content and have such a massive subscribers base that they should be ok. Hulu is strawberry floated.


I'd imagine it's only a matter of time before Disney try to buy out Sonys remaining interest in Spiderman.

Well, no because Disney now own the majority of Hulu

Why share the cake with Warner and Comcast instead of keeping it all for themselves? They are already committed to launching their own streaming service so I don't see why they'd leave their content on Hulu.

bear wrote:

Tomous wrote:

bear wrote:

KK wrote:I'd be a little worried if I were Netflix (Amazon less so, as Prime isn't solely reliant on its streaming service).

Netflix have at least managed to built up a solid library of content and have such a massive subscribers base that they should be ok. Hulu is strawberry floated.


I'd imagine it's only a matter of time before Disney try to buy out Sonys remaining interest in Spiderman.

Well, no because Disney now own the majority of Hulu

Why share the cake with Warner and Comcast instead of keeping it all for themselves? They are already committed to launching their own streaming service so I don't see why they'd leave their content on Hulu.

Ah, I didn't realise that, I just read somewhere they now owned the majority of Hulu but you're right, they effectively own 60% with Warner/Comcast owning the rest.

It’s obviously good news for Marvel movies and also for keeping Murdoch away from control of our TV.

But, Disney is starting to get scarily big. They really do own an unhealthy amount of our modern pop culture.

What this does in theory is give Sky even more buying power over sports rights (though for the Premier League for example they can never again buy all of it), but there's always a limit as to what the consumer is willing to pay to watch it. And as wages continue to stagnate, they've hit the buffers already.

Competition (forced or otherwise) doesn't always work. Sport has been syphoned off all over the place, and now just costs the consumer more to watch it all, whereas before it was practically all under one roof.