Comment on Was Disney's Fox purchase a huge waste of money?

Melonius@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• chickenwing@lemmy.film ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  They still have significant competition from other streamers and a lot of their Fox properties are on Hulu rather than Disney Plus. They are bleeding subscribers and they can’t afford to raise prices too much. I know they are going to raise prices soon but it’s a careful balancing act they can’t afford to make it too pricey.

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  • Melonius@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    By acquiring fox they have 60% ownership interest in Hulu. It’s that simple.

    nypost.com/…/hulu-and-disney-subscriptions-are-go…

    I’m sure the timing is coincidence and has nothing to do with Disney controlling the largest market share of streaming services.

    Nearly every acquisition is about extinguishing competition and squeezing more juice from your core products. It’s why oil and gas buys green tech to toss it in the bin, it’s why Google buys waze and essentially halts development on it, it’s why Microsoft bought blizzard. They extract any value from what they bought but that is secondary to eliminating a company that they’d have to compete with on price.

    dealroom.net/blog/biggest-m-a-deals-2022

    Every coy news article that pretends there’s some sort of 3d chess going on or some big unknowable synergies is a joke. They’ll give the acquired divisions to some much more competent middle managers to see if there’s any value to extract, but it’s secondary to the main objective. Disney would much rather collaborate with n-1 competitors (Netflix is really it?)

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    • chickenwing@lemmy.film ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I think MS buying Activision is also a losing play but MS is in a better position to spend that kind of money compared to Disney.

      If the strategy was to kill Hulu then why keep it around? Just axe it or sell it and put all your stuff on one app. I also don’t get the Paramount+ and Showtime strategy. If you are trying to beat Netflix by having better content why split it into 2 apps?

      Streaming could be a whole other post really. All these companies have bought into having their own app and they are all losing big time. Might be time to reevaluate streaming in general.

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      • Melonius@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Long term they may axe hulu but comcast still has an ownership interest. For now they have subscribers and show contracts that are probably limited to that platform. Let them expire, renew what’s earning, and write off any homegrown content for whatever % of goodwill of the acquisition price it accounts for. Most importantly though - they’ll continue to raise prices unabated.

        I can’t predict the future but they’ll probably let hulu stagnate for the next few years and payoff remaining shareholders when its time to snuff it.

        Can’t comment on Microsoft and Activision too much, but it will be the same drivers. Microsoft has been pushing game pass aggressively at a loss, and when companies are operating at a loss in a product segment they’re in the extend phase. They’re also very publicly focused on xbox market share. Maybe the next COD game will be gamepass exclusive or something dumb like that, idk.

        Streaming could be a whole other post really. All these companies have bought into having their own app and they are all losing big time.

        I’d be cautious jumping to that conclusion. Netflix, Disney, and Amazon are all extremely profitable. The news makes it sound like there’s blood in the street but its just that earnings aren’t growing exponentially as fast as before. The smaller ones might be having trouble competing but I haven’t really looked in to it.

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