The Walt Disney Company is now officially the owner of two-thirds of 21st Century Fox.

The $71.3 billion deal first announced in December 2017 finally closed at 4:02 a.m. GMT this morning.

Disney now owns a range of film and TV assets including the Fox film and TV studio, FX Networks, National Geographic, international assets like Star India and a 30 percent stake in Hulu.

The deal raises the question, does this make Disney the biggest player in the media and entertainment industry? Alice Enders, head of research at Enders Analysis, tells TV Technology sister publication TVBEurope the answer to that question lies in another: “It begs the question of how a big player is conceived these days. Is it by total revenue? By the strength of the catalog and the pipeline of new releases? Certainly Disney is the single largest in children’s entertainment as it always has been. But acquiring Fox does not turn it into the adult entertainment juggernaut that is Warner Bros.

“Or are you aiming for the Netflix question: the power today is in direct to consumer relationships, allowing the company to hoover up data, refine creative strategy etc. In the latter case, Disney is no Netflix, but Disney needed Fox to some degree to launch a competitor service that has a chance to succeed in the U.S.”

Obviously it’s very early days in terms of what Disney might choose to do with its new acquisition. Enders believes the company’s first strategy will be to integrate Fox into the business—which could lead to cost savings—as well as the much-discussed launch later this year of its D2C streamer Disney+.

“For Disney to concede to the market that D2C is the primary value for a company today is quite something, but the writing has been on the wall for years now,” says Enders. “Everyone has struggled with the same problem: how to transform a lucrative business of licensing content to cinemas (Disney’s outstanding strength) and turn TV into an OTT business that doesn’t kill the existing revenue streams off.

“It’s a transition that Disney shareholders are on, and it may or may not work. If Disney cannot pierce Netflix in family entertainment, then no one can take that business on and all are condemned to being further upstream, cut off from the viewing numbers they require to judge if their shows are worth the licensing revenues they assert to the Netflixes of this world.”

Back when the deal was first mooted, Enders told TVBEurope it would be “quite astonishing” if the Murdoch family were to sell Fox. What does she think now? “The Rupert Murdoch strategy of centering the family fortunes on a major Hollywood studio has not changed, but just been transformed into a holding (passive for now) in Disney instead of Fox, future proofed for the passage to the next world of the great patriarch himself,” says Enders. “Much better to wrap it all up while he is with us than let the kids squabble and spoil his life’s work. I think it might be envisaged that James Murdoch becomes the eyes and ears of the family inside Fox.”

Finally, does Enders see the Disney/Fox deal as the start of a raft of these mega-deals, or will things calm down as the industry adjusts to the change? “There have been lots of rumors about Apple and Netflix. There are always going to be rumors about Apple (deep pockets) and the content business, and every media company wants value to be maximized by having many buyers for any asset,” she says.

“However, I don’t see that tie-up with a content business being uppermost for the moment; Apple/Netflix would be a concession that Apple’s own D2C business is mature and cannot grow further. Why buy Netflix when 30 percent commission is made on the Apple store? It has a lucrative content business already. It collects masses of data; location data being especially valuable. I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like essential for Apple to buy Netflix.”

LONDON—The mega media mergers of Disney and Fox and Comcast and Sky have bolstered the two companies’ content holdings and positioned them to compete effectively with online video providers, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, according to a new analysis from media analyst firm Ampere Analysis.

Following the mergers, two of every $10 spent on content worldwide and four of every $10 in the United States will be accounted for by Comcast/Sky and Disney/Fox, according to the firm.

Together, the two merged companies will account for $43 billion spent on content this year—with Disney/Fox spending $22 billion on originated and acquired content and Comcast/Sky spending $21 billion.

While online video platforms, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, continue to be content juggernauts –with Netflix on track to spend $8 billion on content this year, the mergers of these traditional content sources have reshuffled the deck when it comes to market power.

“Prior to the recent mergers, Netflix was on course to catch –and overtake—the top Hollywood studios by content spend,” says Daniel Gadner, analyst at Ampere Analysis. “However, in light of the two new combined entities, Netflix would now need to triple spend to achieve this feat.”

The mergers strengthen to position of both Disney/Fox and Comcast/Sky in the global market and protects them against the rising power of online video, he adds. By executing the mergers, both have increased their libraries of original content, which they can exploit as part of their direct-to-consumer strategies.

Disney already has indicated it will go direct to consumer and pull the plug on licensing content to Netflix. The addition of Fox will make the offering even stronger, says Gadher.

For independent producers, the consolidation will mean less competition for rights, which “inevitably [will] impact the indie sector’s ability to negotiate favorable deals,” he adds.

The European Commission has announced it has approved Disney's $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox, but it has made the deal subject to conditions.

In a statement, regulators said: "To address the Commission's competition concerns, Disney committed to divest its interest in all factual channels it controls in the European Economic Area (EEA), namely: History, H2, Crime & Investigation, Blaze and Lifetime channels.

"These channels are currently controlled by A+E Television Networks, which is a joint venture between Disney and Hearst. The commitments fully remove the overlap between Disney's and Fox's activities in the wholesale supply of factual channels in the EEA."

The Commission said it has concluded that the proposed transaction, as modified by the commitments, "would no longer raise competition concerns." But that the decision is conditional upon full compliance with the commitments.

Comcast has officially acquired 21st Century Fox's 39 per cent stake in Sky.

The acquisition allows Comcast to take full ownership of Sky. Comcast won the auction for Sky valuing the company at £29.7 billion.

"We are pleased today to be the majority owner of Sky. Led by Jeremy Darroch and his superb team, now together with Comcast, our combined global leadership in technology and content paves the way for us to accelerate investment and growth in Sky’s brand and premier platforms," said Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast, said in a statement.

"We are also fully committed to ensuring Sky News' future, maintaining its editorial independence, and preserving its strong track record for trusted, high quality, impartial news," he added.

Following the announcement, James Murdoch was among a number of directors who resigned from the board of Sky.

21st Century Fox said it plans to sell its stake in Sky to Comcast.

Comcast made a $40 billion offer that outbid Fox for the remaining Sky shares. Fox was bidding for the Walt Disney Co., which earlier had agreed to buy assets from Fox, including Fox’s 37% of Sky.

Fox valued its stake at $15 billion.

Disney said consented to Fox’s decision to sell the stake to Comcast.

Fox will either it tender its shares under Comcast’s offer, or sell the shares directly to Comcast.

Outbidding Fox and Disney for Sky hurt Comcast on Wall Street, where investors were concerned Comcast has overpaid for the asset.

But Comcast said it believe Sky would give it a larger subscriber base, more international business and access to direct-to-consumer technology.

Fox issued statement about its decision to sell its stake in Sky.

“In light of the premium Comcast has agreed to pay for Sky, we and Disney have decided to sell 21CF’s existing 39% holding in Sky to Comcast. We congratulate Comcast on their pending acquisition.

“We are proud of the role our company has played in building Sky, and of the outstanding value we have delivered for shareholders of 21CF and Sky, and customers across Europe.

“When we launched Sky in 1989 it was four channels produced from a prefab structure in an industrial park on the fringes of west London. We bet -- and almost lost -- the farm on launching a business that many didn’t think was such a good idea. Today, Sky is Europe’s leading entertainment company and a world-class example of a customer-driven enterprise. This achievement would not have been possible without decades of entrepreneurial risk-taking and the commitment of thousands of colleagues, creators and dreamers. For nearly 30 years we have invested to create a dynamic and exciting business that has produced excellent returns for shareholders and has become one of the most admired companies in Europe.

“We have provided greater choice and better value for families across Europe, and we have created more than 31,000 jobs across the continent. Today, Sky brings customers better TV than ever before and better entertainment experiences than many ever thought possible.”

We are grateful to our exceptional colleagues at Sky for creating this unique and outstanding company and wish them continued success.”

LOS ANGELES--Shareholders for the Walt Disney Co. and 21 Century Fox quickly approved their estimated $71.3 billion merger on Friday in a deal that could radically alter the media landscape.

The voting process, which took less than 15 minutes, ended a dramatic dealmaking process that involved rival bids from Comcast that jacked up the price nearly $19 billion since News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch made his initial offer of $52 billion in December. In the merger, Disney will acquire Fox’s television and movie studio, cable television channels FX and National Geographic, a stake in streaming service Hulu, television operations in India and Fox’s 39 percent stake in London-based pay-TV company Sky. 

Under the amended agreement, Disney will pay $35 billion in cash and distribute about 343 million shares of new Disney stock to 21st Century Fox shareholders, who will end up owning approximately 20 percent of Disney. Fox shareholders can elect to receive $38 per share or cash in Disney. The overall mix of consideration paid to 21st Century Fox shareholders will be approximately 50 percent cash and 50 percent stock.

Although the merger has already receive DOJ approval late last month with the sale of some regional sports networks, the deal is not expected to be approved until next year, since it faces additional regulatory approval from foreign governments. Disney said it is raising approximately $34 billion to help finance the transaction.

The acquisition will occur immediately after the spin-off by 21st Century Fox of the Fox Broadcasting network and stations, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FS1, FS2 and Big Ten Network into a newly listed company referred to as New Fox. If 21st Century Fox completes its acquisition of the 61 percent of Sky it doesn’t already own prior to closing of the Disney acquisition, Disney would assume full ownership of Sky, including the assumption of its outstanding debt, upon closing.

Among other plans, Disney will use the acquisition to take on rivals Netflix and Amazon with a Disney-branded streaming video on demand service that will feature Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars films along with a host of exclusive original content and library titles service in late 2019. Disney will also take a controlling stake in Hulu..

“We’re incredibly pleased that shareholders of both companies have granted approval for us to move forward, and are confident in our ability to create significant long-term value through this acquisition of Fox’s premier assets,” said Disney Chairma/CEO Bob Iger. “We remain grateful to Rupert Murdoch and to the rest of the 21st Century Fox board for entrusting us with the future of these extraordinary businesses, and look forward to welcoming 21st Century Fox’s stellar talent to Disney and ultimately integrating our businesses to provide consumers around the world with more appealing content and entertainment options.”

SEATTLE–21st Century Fox says it is expanding its relationship with Amazon Web Services to use AWS’s cloud platform to deliver more than 90,000 titles on demand for key brands such as Fox, FX, National Geographic, 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century Fox Film, and Fox Sports. The announcement is part of Fox’s extended partnership in which AWS will house the vast majority of Fox’s key platforms and workloads in the AWS cloud and adopt AWS’s machine learning and data analytics services to create a consistent set of digital media capabilities across its brands.

As part of a broader cloud transformation, 21st Century Fox says it has already reduced its data center needs by 50 percent and moved over 30 million assets—approximately 10 petabytes of content—to Amazon Glacier and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). In addition, 21st Century Fox has implemented an advanced company-wide approach to data collection, processing, and instrumentation using AWS’s technologies.

With this approach in place, 21st Century Fox is now leveraging AWS services such as Amazon S3 and AWS Glue to unify assets across the enterprise, Amazon Redshift to analyze data quickly, and Amazon Kinesis to collect, process, and analyze real-time, streaming data to gain deeper insights from the volume and variety of data ingested. This is facilitating the creation of new data products, and the deployment of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques across the organization according to Fox.

[Read: ‘Deadliest Catch’ Lands In The Cloud']

“We are experiencing the benefits of our long-term relationship with AWS, which started many years ago when we began to modernize the infrastructure and platforms that power our businesses throughout the world,” said John Herbert, Chief Information Officer at 21st Century Fox. “Having completed this phase, our strategic relationship is now enabling completely new and creative ways of producing our award-winning content and reaching audiences with new and innovative products.”

“We’ve all seen their award-winning television shows, tuned in for major sporting events, and felt connected to some of their blockbuster films, but 21st Century Fox is also a business-to-business media and entertainment powerhouse that is successfully using AWS to drive digital transformation across the entire organization,” said Mike Clayville, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS. “In continuing to expand 21st Century Fox’s footprint on AWS, we’re helping them to innovate with speed and at scale. AWS is innovating at a faster clip than anyone else, especially in new areas such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and Serverless Computing, which means 21st Century Fox is always able to use the most advanced technologies on AWS to evolve their business in the cloud.”

The Walt Disney Company, which is currently bidding for 21st Century Fox's film and TV studio assets, announced a year ago that it is moving most of its production to the AWS Cloud.  

WASHINGTON--The Department of Justice on Wednesday cleared the way for Disney to acquire the assets of 21 Century Fox pending the sale of Fox’s regional sports networks.

The announcement by the DOJ’s antitrust division gives Disney a leg up over Comcast, which is also attempting to purchase the assets, which include the Twentieth Century Fox studio. The two companies have made several proposals that has driven the value of the transaction from $52.4 billion to $71.3 billion as of last week. Comcast is attempting to partner with other companies or private equity investors to raise additional cash for the deal, which could reach up to $90 billion, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal today.

To meet the DOJ’s final approval, Disney will have to divest 22 regional sports networks, responding to critics’ fears that a combined Disney-Fox company would result in higher prices for cable sports programming. The department has given Disney 90 days to divest the RSNs following closure of the deal.

“American consumers have benefitted from head-to-head competition between Disney and Fox’s cable sports programming that ultimately has prevented cable television subscription prices from rising even higher,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “Today’s settlement will ensure that sports programming competition is preserved in the local markets where Disney and Fox compete for cable and satellite distribution.”

Matthew Polka, president and CEO of the American Cable Association applauded the decision and urged Comcast to drop its bid.

"DOJ's action should convince Comcast to abandon its own pursuit of the Fox programming assets,” Polka said. "It already has too much market power by virtue of being both the nation's largest cable operator and a significant owner of national, regional and local programming. And its ability to harm rivals has only increased with the recent expiration of FCC conditions that were put in place in 2011 to address this concern. Comcast's acquisition of even more programming is a bridge too far for competition and consumers."

The deal is also subject to other regulatory approvals outside of the U.S. as well as shareholder approval. 

Comcast is talking to bankers about getting financing for an all-cash bid for the assets 21st Century Fox has agreed to sell for $52 billion to the Walt Disney Co., according to Reuters.

The new bid would up the ante in what is developing into a battle among Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch.

Comcast earlier this month made a bid for European satellite company Sky. Fox owns a big stake in Sky and its proposal to buy the remainder has been held up by British regulators.

[Read: Comcast's Sky Bid Could Lead To A Global OTT Service]

According to the report, Comcast is asking bankers to increase the loans it has to buy Sky so it can purchase the Fox assets as well.

Fox rejected an offer from Comcast that was 17% higher than Disney’s bid because of antitrust issues.

Under President Donald Trump, the Justice Department sued to prevent AT&T from acquiring Time Warner. A ruling in the case is expected next month.

NEW YORK—While no plans are currently in place, Fox is leaving the door open that it could launch a direct-to-consumer model, according to 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch. Murdoch spoke at UBS’ annual Global Media and Communications on Monday, Dec. 6, where he noted that digital distributions offer a better user experience, but the company was focused on opportunities created by advertising innovation and by working with new third-party digital distributors.

Read the full story on TVT’s sister publication, B&C.

NEW YORK—21st Century Fox announced the appointment of Paul Cheesbrough to the role of chief technology officer. In this new role, he will lead company-wide information technology strategy and play a leadership role in driving its investments in technology, platforms and systems on a global basis. He joins 21CF from News Corp, where he also has served as CTO.

Cheesbrough will report to Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch and CEO James Murdoch, who said, “Paul is an outstanding executive and strategist whose great operational chops and track record in technology we know very well. Our business demands continuous innovation across everything we do. We can’t think of anyone more qualified than Paul to ensure it extends equally to how we harness technology to empower our people and businesses.”

Reporting to Cheesbrough in his new role will be the enterprise technology leaders from Fox Networks Group, Twentieth Century Fox Film and Fox News Channel.

Since 2012, Cheesbrough has served as CTO for News Corp. In this role he led the company’s technology teams and drove digital transformation across its businesses, focusing on new platforms, digital investments and acquisitions.

Prior to that he held executive technology leadership positions at News Corp’s U.K. business News UK, Telegraph Media Group, the BBC and IBM. He also currently serves as the chairman of Unruly Media.