Disney also gets a bunch of cable and pay TV networks, including FX Networks, National Geographic Partners, Fox Sports' regional networks, as well as Fox Networks International, Star India, and Fox's share of Sky and Hulu. Fox will spin off Fox News, Fox Business Network, FS1, FS2, and Big Ten Network into a new company that Disney will not own.
So what does this mean for theme park fans? Disney already owns way more IP than it can get into its parks. Disney's development plans for major theme park attractions around the world are pretty much set through 2021, with major Marvel development plans for Disney California Adventure on deck immediately after that. Anything coming to the table from Fox would slot in after those projects... assuming that there's anything from Fox that Disney wishes to pursue in its theme parks.
Disney can't use X-Men and Fantastic Four at the Walt Disney World or Tokyo Disney Resorts due to Universal's licensing deal with Marvel. The Simpsons are off the table in the United States due to a Universal licensing deal, as well. Disney already has an Avatar land in Florida. What's left? Planet of the Apes offers some great world-building opportunities for a next-generation, immersive theme park land. But where would it fit within Disney's theme park portfolio? I don't know that Planet of the Apes hits a beat different enough from Star Wars and Avatar to cover any market space that those franchises don't already deliver to Disney.
As for animation, Fox's line-up is relatively weak. There's Ice Age, but do we really want to tempt Disney Animation with a Scrat/Olaf cross-over featurette to slap in front of the next Pixar flick? (Okay, actually, that might approach some Tommy Wiseau-levels of awesomeness.)
The biggest impact on the theme park industry, then, might not come from this deal... but from the next deal that this acquisition inspires. Today the U.S. Justice Department filed suit to stop the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner, which owns the Warner Bros. studio. And the FCC just voted to end Net Neutrality, which means that ISPs can now choose which websites and services they will allow you to access.
Disney acquired Fox in large part to expand the library of content it could offer on its own Netflix-style streaming services. But Disney does not control an ISP, which means that in a post-Net Neutrality marketplace, it might find itself unable to reach any viewers with its new services, should AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast (which owns NBCUniversal) decide to play hardball and favor their own associated content providers, instead.
The Disney/Fox deal and Net Neutrality decision will force other content providers to consider their position in the marketplace. Does Comcast make a play now for Warner Bros., if AT&T isn't going to get that studio? A Warner Bros./Universal deal has been rumored for years, only subsiding when AT&T made its play for Warner's parent company. Does Verizon make a play for National Amusements to get control of Viacom's Paramount Pictures and CBS? Or does someone try to buy Sony Pictures?
And when does Amazon, which is developing a huge studio presence and has an obvious, massive financial interest in maintaining open access to Internet users, decide to make a deal, too?
If the new, vertically-integrated business model for entertainment is ISP/movie studios/TV networks/streaming services/theme parks, then the industry is facing more mergers and acquisitions as companies look to re-position themselves along that model. Right now, Comcast is the only one there. But AT&T trying to get there, and Disney is bulking up, too. Theme parks — with their power to promote brand affinity and customer spending on affiliated franchises — will be a part of this.
We don't know exactly how just yet.
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that is a huge incentive for the ISP's to give disney very fair terms, where they could feel free to obtain large amounts of money from netflix/amazon in a non neutral world.
Essentially, preferred status with most ISPs (I doubt any ISP will "block" access to content - perhaps throttle back to make other preferred content faster, but not completely block) will be virtually guaranteed with Disney's library and planned streaming service that will now be on level footing with NetFlix, Hulu (which Disney will now own a portion), Apple, and other direct to consumer content providers. What ISP would dare throttle back ESPN (and all of the newly acquire RSNs) during a live event?
What if Universal exchanges Marvel for Simpsons especially since The Simpsons doesn't fit artistically in Disney's portfolio. In exchange for the IP transfer in broadcast rights and library, Universal gets to phase out Spiderman and eventually all theme parks rights reverts back to Disney. Immediately, Disney gets theme park rights to all characters not already in Universal theme parks so the whole deal unwinds.
I would think Universal would want to acquire another studio for better parity although Time Warner (Warner Bros) will attempt to merge with AT&T. Not sure if the merger will go through since the DOJ just filed a lawsuit to prevent it.
I have observed fox sports go, to have these problems, much less of a percentage of the time. So. it is not my internet connection, is it not comcast isp, slowing anything down. The ESPN streaming platform, is not very technically proficient. For whatever reason, disney have not hired competent personnel or provided enough resources in this area. Perhaps, to discourage cord cutting????
If the problem, was technical knowhow. Disney will now get assistance from the european sky ISP. Part of fox, that runs both ISP's in europe and sports and movie streaming.
>>>What ISP would dare throttle back ESPN (and all of the newly acquire RSNs) during a live event?
The one that wants you to pay an extra $10 per month. I worked for an ISP who tried charging extra to let people stream.... those conversations were not fun.
I agree that under the current setup of wired ISPs in the US, this could create a huge mess for consumers, but I think by rolling back net neutrality it will actually blow the doors off internet access to the point where consumers have more choices than ever before. Call me a glass half full kinda guy, but internet access in the US wasn't getting any better under the status quo (speed and coverage lags far behind other countries in both Europe and Asia).
Oy...
Regarding this deal with Fox I'm wondering if Disney will get it's money back. How many ip's and talents are there to milk it as they do with Star Wars and Marvel?
No, you wont. Removing Net Neutrality will not change that rolling out a new network is prohibitively expensive, and any attempt to do so will see you dragged into court by the established player over access to poles and such until your business is out of money.
The way to get more players into the market is to do what Australia and Britain did. Local Loop Unbundling, and separating the incombant's wholesale and retail arms.
>>> (speed and coverage lags far behind other countries in both Europe and Asia).
Then surely the model to follow their model.
Universal could always return "Back to the Future" to the space. Just add better vehicle mechanics and a cleaned up print of the ride film.
The theming of the Springfield areas is meh, especially in LA. 7-11 did a better job with their stores for "The Simpsons Movie" promo.
Hey, your comment is vague. Universal doesn't pay for which license? Which IP is bringing who a ton of money?
The reason for the trade is about putting dollars into Disney's pocket so by giving up Simpsons, Disney hopes to generate more money into Disney's theme parks with Marvel. Of course, Disney might not have reason to give up The Simpsons if it feels more money can be made in television, cable, or streaming rights. The Universal/Marvel agreement ties Disney's hands with respect to the Marvel name in theme parks and what characters can be used.
The Simpsons are a lucrative IP. Perhaps instead of one for one swap, they can put together a package deal of characters for Universal's unfettered usage of some former Fox IPs in their theme parks in a trade for Marvel.
From my knowledge with net neutrality the ones who benefit are--Websites that use a disproportionate amount of data per individual customer, like Netflix/Amazon and other streaming services and the ISP's to the extent that their customers also stream large amounts of video and the individual households, who stream disproportionately large amounts of video, versus the average household.
The ones who are hurt by net neutrality are the ISP's who cannot charge extra money to households that use a disproportionate amount of data and because of that the actual consumer households, that use disproportionately smaller amount of data than average.
Because essentially, households that are using less data, are subsidizing households that use an above average amount of data.
Until around 7 years ago, we had the eqivilent of net neutrality for water usage in california. Every residential household paid the same amount, irregardless of how much they actually used. The state legislature decided to end that, and now water usage is not "neutral".
If people use more water, they pay proportionately more. (there is actually an additional money penalty for higher usage in the form of tiered pricing, but that is due to environmental concerns)
I don't understand why households, who use more data should not pay more, than households who use less data? In the average instance, those households that use more data have higher incomes.
Am i missing something? It seems to me, that net neutrality (in the average and aggragate), benefits richer than average people, and penalizes poorer households?
Also, according to what I read on wikipedia. (there are some disclaimers, on the top of the wikipedia page), the united States, does mostly have local loop unbundling since the FCC made a ruling in 1996. It says it is market based/negotiated local loop unbundling. Since, I never heard huge news about huge numbers of lawsuits between ISP's and content creators or Amazon/Hulu/netflix and the like. It seems like the free market (with that statement, opening for lawsuits by websites), has worked pretty well and ISP's have not taken unfair advantage. Not because, ISP's are saints, but because they realize it would be an inefficient use of money, to waste on legal fees and potencial adverse court verdicts.
Theme parks were NOT the driving force of the acquisition.
Reacquiring Marvel’s X-Men and FF film rights was NOT the driving force of the acquisition.
The driving force of the acquisition was BEATING NETFLIX.
there is no big outcry, by any major group (including democrat politicians) against it. google, reads our email, for advertising purposes to. Where is the uproar, and upset? not present.
Until someone gives me good facts to the contrary, it seems pretty obvious, that net neutrality is NOT at all a fight between companies and customers.
It seems absolutely like a fight between big business (comcast, ATT etc) and other big businesses (Netflix/amazon/disney fox combo/google-youtube, and perhaps facebook .)
You misunderstand net neutrality completely.
Net Neutrality is just treating every piece of data as if it is equal, it does not at all say that ISPs cannot charge by volume. I'll break down your further queries from the top:
>>>Websites that use a disproportionate amount of data per individual customer, like Netflix/Amazon and other streaming services and the ISP's to the extent that their customers also stream large amounts of video and the individual households, who stream disproportionately large amounts of video, versus the average household.
No. Firstly, websites almost always pay for the amount of data they transfer. Home connections depnds by area or country.
Under Net Neutrality, all of that data is treated exactly the same. If you use 1gb of Netflix, or if you use 1gb of text, you are billed exactly the same. If you're billed by the bit, then you pay by the bit.
Without net Neutrality, An ISP can turn around and say "Well, we want to charge extra for video sites (except for our own video site), so we will - even though the amount of data you used is the same the fact that its video means we want more"
>>> The ones who are hurt by net neutrality are the ISP's who cannot charge extra money to households that use a disproportionate amount of data and because of that the actual consumer households, that use disproportionately smaller amount of data than average.
Nothing in Net Neutrality requires unlimited packages - pay for use is completely compatible with net neutrality (and in fact is the only model available on the market in many places that NN is the law). All it requires is that 1 bit of video be billed and treated the same rate as 1 bit of anything else.
The only people that gain without net neutrality is the ISP who can now start to use their gatekeeper power to their own advantage - demanding extra funds for carrage (as some American ISPs did from Level 3 / Netflix even when Netflix offered to provide them with effectively a free peering connection), or to anti-compeitively favour their own platforms.
ISPs haven't been taken advantage of at all.
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That said, I think that Disney's lack of ownership of an ISP exposes it to risk... unless it is betting on a Democratic wave in 2018/2020 reestablishing Net Neutrality and leaving the ISPs in an exposed position relative to pure content providers (such as Disney).