Skip to main content

Comcast will own all of Sky as Fox sells its stake for $15 billion

The summer’s Fox / Comcast / Disney drama came to a close last week when Comcast finally managed to outbid 21st Century Fox for a controlling stake in European TV and broadband provider Sky for $38.8 billion. And now, having lost that battle, Fox is ceding the remainder of its existing 39 percent ownership to Comcast in a $15 billion deal that would see Comcast gain full control of the UK telecom company, as reported by Variety.

Fox had long been attempting to gain full control of Sky — Fox’s existing 39 percent stake as well as the intended remainder of the company was set to be included as part of the Disney deal — but ran into a competing bid from Comcast, which also tried to one-up the House of Mouse in buying Fox. In the end, it seems the two major corporations will split the prize: Disney managing to outbid Comcast for Fox, and Comcast taking Sky from Fox (and, therefore, Disney).

Sky is important for both of the companies in what it represents — an existing distribution network for big chunks of the European market, which the US-based Comcast (which owns NBC and Universal) and Disney are both eying as they look to expand their content into more markets.



from The Verge - Teches https://ift.tt/2xSSNZx

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Magic Leap is shipping across (most of) the US

As Magic Leap holds the first developer conference for its Magic Leap One mixed reality headset, that headset has started shipping across the contiguous United States, instead of in a set of select markets. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition costs $2,295, just like before, but there’s now an installment plan that starts at $96 per month. All orders are supposed to arrive within 60 days. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition went on sale in early August, and while Magic Leap has touted it as a fully functional device, it’s basically meant for people who want to design apps, games, or art for mixed reality. We were ambivalent toward the hardware, which we found limited, and we noted that Magic Leap hadn’t shown off a lot of material that showcased its potential. The company’s developer conference keynote has revealed several new projects. Among other things, Spider-Man studio Insomniac Games is building an experience that will let you grow a holographic creature on your tabletop, and...

The company behind the adorably doomed robot Kuri is shutting down

Less than a month after Mayfield Robotics said it was stopping production on its Kuri home robot, the company announced today on its blog that the company will be shutting down. Mayfield Robotics launched in 2015 as part of Bosch’s Startup Platform, but struggled to integrate with and find a business fit within Bosch. Since the cancellation of its Kuri robot, Mayfield Robotics had been looking for external partners for long-term technology development, but was unable to find investment to support its future. The company will cease all operations by October 31st. We first met Kuri at CES 2017, and it wasn’t yet able to showcase all the features it was promised to have in the future. The robot was supposed to have smart assistant functionalities like an Amazon Echo, but with a much cuter face and movable body. Promo videos showed it working as a moving home security camera that was controllable through the Kuri app, but in the demonstration we saw, it only had as much functionality a...

Amazon’s plans for a New York office are under new scrutiny

A month ago, when Amazon announced that it would build regional offices in New York and Virginia at great expense to the taxpayers there, I wrote that it had misunderstood the moment : Perhaps the furor over Amazon’s regional offices will blow over. But it’s hard not to feel today as if the company misread the room — overestimating the public’s appetite for a billion-dollar giveaway to one of the world’s biggest companies, and underestimating the public’s ability to raise hell on- and offline. Amazon may yet feel that pain, in the long run. Today, Amazon met the room: 150 protesters who showed up to the first New York City Council hearing about the plan. According to reports from the scene, demonstrators’ concerns start with the $3 billion in incentives that New York plans to give Amazon in exchange for locating there — and, it says, creating 25,000 jobs. Here’s Leticia Miranda in BuzzFeed : ”You’re worth a trillion dollars,” New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told the ...