Disney & Fox Acquisition

A match made in heaven or a recipe for disaster?

The recent acquisition of the majority of 21^st Century Fox’s assets by The Walt Disney Company is easily the biggest acquisition of the decade, if not longer. The $71.3 billion purchase included, to start:  the 20^th Century Fox film and television studios, a 73% share of National Geographic Partners, and a 30% share in Hulu (https://bit.ly/39UnsqE). While some might believe this acquisition to be beneficial to the American people and greatly enhance their film and television experiences, I believe having all these brands under one company will be a huge mistake.

The Walt Disney Company has been slowly growing their assets over the years before this Fox acquisition, purchasing Lucasfilm, Marvel, and Pixar in the most recent years. Now with the Fox acquisition Disney is now in charge of a colossal amount of media for a very demanding audience, with very high expectations. 21^st Century Fox and Disney each release an impressive amount of content each year, and now The Walt Disney Company is heading all these operations by themselves. This could very well spell disaster.

Before the acquisition, Disney had set to release 11 movies in 2019. After gaining the 20^th Century Fox rights, Disney was then set to release 19 movies in 2019 (https://bit.ly/2Vgnm8J). While I believe that Disney is an extremely capable company, dedicated to the quality and success of their content, releasing 19 movies is quite a feat. Money is of course not an issue I am considering here, as Disney is a hugely profitable firm. The issue that arises here is the redistribution of time given to each movie. Doubling their workload means less time given to each product, causing Disney to potentially produce lower quality content. As discussed in Lecture 5.2., “Who Owns The Media?” I fully support the idea that conglomerates hurt the media. We learned that less competition could mean an overall decrease in diversity, either through the range of content, the range of voices, and prices. In this case, I do not think we will be getting a lack on content, I only think that Disney is hindering themselves, not giving themselves the space and time to complete and fully promote all their fantastic ideas.

19 movies in 12 months? That gives little time for each movie to be a huge blockbuster success. Disney now has to carefully plan these release dates to ensure that each movie is a hit in its own right. Along with that, they also need to work on advertising for each film, without having them all overlap too much and overwhelming viewers.

Disney usually comes out with a brand new movie with a whole new story line and characters about once a year as well. With this acquisition Disney hardly has time for that! I worry that much of Disney’s creative ideas will be tossed aside to focus on ongoing projects and sequels such as Avengers and Star Wars.

All in all, I think combining so many film companies together under one giant, The Walt Disney Company, was a mistake. In media, I think diversity is incredibly important and now all these channels, shows, and films will be under the direction of one company with one set of values. Here’s to hoping that Disney is prepared for this, and if they unfreeze Walt Disney any time soon, fingers crossed he approves of the behemoth that Disney has become!