And it’s official: the Walt Disney Company said today that it has reached a definitive agreement to buy the majority of assets belonging to Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. The all-stock deal is worth around $52.4 billion.
The deal has huge and far-reaching implications for the entire entertainment industry, creating uncertainty for many people. It will take a lot of time to untangle the effects of the deal.
The bottomline is that for consumers who desire choice and variety, this is obviously a very bad deal, reducing the number of major American-owned entertainment producers from five companies to four. It’s also nothing short of a travesty that a handful of profit-driven conglomerates exert so much control over America’s cultural identity, and that a relative handful of people control the narrative of a diverse and rich nation of 325 million people.