Comcast officially bid $65 million for the assets of 21st Century Fox on Wednesday.
The all-cash proposal, higher than the expected $60 billion, was about 20 percent above the offer Disney made in December, and it included added incentives. Comcast said it would reimburse Disney $1.5 billion of the $2.5 billion breakup fee Disney would have to pay.
Daniel Ives, the chief strategy officer and head of technology research at GBH Insights, said this offer won't be the last blow in the fight for Fox.
"Right now you have a UFC match going on between Comcast and Disney," he said in an interview Wednesday with Cheddar just after news of Comcast's offer. "I'd expect Disney to come back with another offer in the next 48 hours."
Ives said Disney can't afford to lose Fox to Comcast, and ultimately the deal might get done "in the high $60 ー $70 billion" range.
"You knew a bid was coming after the green light yesterday for AT&T, but this is a good offer," he said.
Comcast's offer comes a day after a U.S. judge ruled in favor of AT&T in its proposed acquisition of Time Warner, a decision thought to open the door for other mega-mergers in the media industry.
Internet providers and cable distributors are looking for more revenue streams to compete with streaming companies such as Netflix and Amazon, which create their own content.
But regulators have criticized consolidation of media assets. The Justice Department sued to block AT&T's $85 billion deal last November, citing concerns over the telecom company owning DirecTV and Time Warner. The judge ruled Tuesday that the government didn't sufficiently make its case that a tie-up would stifle competition or harm consumers.
Before the ruling, Comcast had said it was preparing an offer for Fox if the judge decided in AT&T's favor. Its all-cash offer was considerably more than the $52.4 billion in stock Disney bid last year.
The winning suitor will gain control of Fox's film and TV studios, including rights to the *X-Men*, *Avatar*, and *Simpsons* franchises; its stake in Hulu; and cable channels including FX.
"Now you've got a battle royale on our hands for these assets," said Ives.
Fox had rebuffed an earlier offer from Comcast, even though it was higher than Disney's. But Rich Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG, [told Cheddar last week](https://cheddar.com/videos/rich-greenfield-murdoch-no-longer-set-on-selling-to-disney-for-stock) that Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox, was open to deals other than Disney.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/what-comcasts-bid-for-fox-means-for-media-mania),
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
