objr said:
Good points!
I don't know...right now MGM doesn't seem like the best choice...and looking at ABC Family, and what a mistake that has turned out to be..I think they should think hard before making a decision...on anything...
That being said, making themselves a bit bigger should make sure no one makes a bid for them...so maybe they should do something and quick...is MGM the route to go...perhaps...but I think that won't be enough...just my opinion...
You have some good points, but we are forgetting the real reason why Disney bought ABC. Let's put it this way, if they didn't, they were at risk of losing future channels of distribution for their programs and movies. Well, if Time-Warner wasn't so big, Disney wouldn't have to make the moves it did. Time-Warner just gets bigger in its ownership of both content of distribution channels. They would easily tell Disney to shoove it and Disney would be left with few ways to get their programs and movies accross (pre ABC).
So, fearing this very real possibility, Eisner made his bid for the company he was once the program director for... ABC. Then, as you may know, every CEO of every entertainment company shared Eisner's paranoidism and got in bed with the remaining TV networks... Of course, FOX has FOX, Time-Warner has the WB, Viacom merged with Paramount and then bought CBS, and now NBC is buying Universal... so every network is owned by or owns a major movie studio now. Looking at it in that persective, is Eisner didn't buy ABC, Disney would be S.O.L. in getting networks to broadcast their stuff.
And the situation just kept getting worse, Time-Warner kept buying more cable channels, including all of the Ted Turner channels and the ultimate distribution channel for the internet... AOL. So, Eisner felt obligated to counter Time-Warner by buying Fox Familiy (now ABC Family) and stakes in other channels, including E!.
One could argue that this madness could have been prevented by Eisner not getting paranoid into buying ABC to begin with. Maybe if his paranoia didn't drive him into buying ABC, maybe Time Warner would not have been driven to buy Turner or start the WB or buy AOL. Maybe Eisner's paranoia motivating him to acquire ABC also started a frenzy of paranoid CEO's throughout the indrustry, and if his paranoia wasn't contageous, maybe Viacom-Paraount wouldn't have been been paranoid into buying CBS... and maybe Universal wouldn't have gotten paranoid into selling itself to NBC.
But we could only speculate and guess of what could have been and what might happen. I can tell you one thing though, this craziness would never have happened if the government stepped in and enforced the separation of content providers and distributors. Back in the day (I learned this in my media classes), studios also owned movie theater chains. Of course, the Paramount theaters only ran Paramount movies, and the same is true for all the other theater chains that were paired with studios. So, the govermnent stepped in and regulated the industry, forcing the studios to separate from their theaters. (this is still being enforced today)
How is owning TV, cable, and internet networks any different from owning theater chains? It's no different. They are just newer mediums for the same purpose as the theater... to reach out for a viewing audience. If the government was doing their job, Time-Warner and HBO would have always been different unrelated companies. Therefore, Eisner would not have been paranoid into buying ABC, and Time-Warner would not feel contested by Disney to own more, and the paranoid frenzy of the other studios wouldn't have followed.
Unfortunately, there's no government intervention right now, so for the media companies to survive, they must own whatever "distributors" they currently don't own.... So, while I diagree with the pairing of content and distribution, as a Disney stockholder, I believe it is a neccessary survival tactic. But I wpuld rather see the goverment start procedures in breaking Time-Warner up. If that happens, I would also be in favor of breaking up Disney because Time-Warner would no longer be a threat.
By the way, Fox just bought DirectTV, the largest satellite distributor. Time-Warner is already the second largest cable system owner... Disney owns no cable or satellite company, but is the second biggest owner of cable networks (after Time-Warner). See why (still independent) Comcast, the nation's largest cable system owner, wants desperately to pair up with content (one of the latest to catch the paranoia that started like a plague when Eisner bought ABC) and made its unsolicited bid for Disney.
Of course if Comcast bought Disney, such a move wouldn't feed Eisner's hungry ego. So, naturally, he turned down the bid. BUT, WHY DIDN'T HE BID FOR COMCAST? That would have given Time-Warner a big CHECKMATE! Maybe is was too busy ignoring Roy Disney and praying he would go away so that he could keep his job. In any case, the Roy Disney campaign has distracted Eisner from being... well, classic Eisner... and in the meantime, Fox is buying DirectTV, Time-Warner keeps growing agressively, Universal is getting married to NBC... and there is still one large (second largest) satellite company that is still independent... DishNet/EchnoStar.
If DishNet/EchoStar or what's left of the big cable companies merge with a Time-Warner, a FOX, a Universal-NBC, a Viacom-Paramount-CBS, and not Disney, (and if the government hasn't stepped in by then) , I will sell my Disney shares, because there is no way Disney could compete with those big mega mega companies, which happened as a result of a chain reaction because of Eisner's paranoia (and the government not enforcing their own rules). How could Eisner bring the company down by not responding to the mega-mergers which wouldn't have happened to begin with had Eisner not spread contagious paranoia.
If all this begins to happen, my stocks are sold, but... if the Board of Directors step in and remove Eisner to prevent this from happening... ah, I'll keep my shares. But who knows, maybe Eisner (who the CEO of NBC recently labeled as a "genious") has it all figured out. Maybe this is a scheme to scare his competition into growing into unmagable sizes, or to egg the government into breaking up the industry, and that the content the Disney will produce are "quality" compared to unimaginative films produced like products manufactured by the "production lines" of its competition. Consumers are no idiots and will pay for (spend their money) on quality.
When consumers start cancelling their HBO subscriptions because Time-Warner isn't airing the movies they want to watch (produce by a Disney-owned studio), and go to the theaters more often, maybe that will be the begining of Time-Warner's downfall... orwhen one of those consumers just happens to be a Senator....
Which brings my long-winded post to an end and back to where I started from... Disney should focus on providing content... which is why they can't let Time-Warner have MGM. Hmmm.... there's still DreamWorks... Pixar...
