Time Warner Turns Down Takeover Bid From Rupert Murdoch 70
Dave Knott (2917251) writes The media giant 21st Century Fox, the empire run by Rupert Murdoch, made an $80 billion takeover bid in recent weeks for Time Warner Inc. but was rebuffed. Time Warner on Wednesday confirmed that it had rejected a cash and stock offer from 21st Century Fox, saying that it was not in the company's best interests. Time Warner's board discussed the proposal at length and early this month it sent a terse letter rejecting the offer, saying the company was better off remaining independent. A Time Warner statement pointed to its own strategic plan, what it said was "uncertainty" over the value of 21st Century Fox stock and regulatory risks as among the reasons for its rebuff. The company said that 21st Century Fox had offered a premium of roughly 22 percent to Time Warner's closing price on Tuesday. Shares of Time Warner were up about 20 percent in premarket trading on Wednesday morning. The combined company would have total revenue of $65 billion.
Good (Score:4)
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TWC cites "regulatory risk" over a Murdoch acquisition, but didn't over Comcast?
This raises the possibility that they weren't being completely honest. (Duh.)
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Satellite's low caps aren't for everyone (Score:2)
it would help to keep switching back to satellite once in a while.
For what? A 10 GB per month data cap? (source: exede.com)
Re:Comcast first (Score:5, Insightful)
They will still have a monopoly in my area regardless of who owns what.
This is off topic, since TWC isn't the same company as TWI, but...
They keep talking about the "lack of overlap" in their markets, but that's bogus. Comcast and TWC overlap in the "negotiating with content providers" market. The larger the company, the harder they can negotiate against the cable channel providers not already owned by one of them. They might say this will yield lower prices for consumers, but you and I know that's total bullshit.
What it actually means is that they'll either drop channels that won't negotiate, and focus more on providing only channels they create, or the third-party channels they keep will need more ads - more in-show ads - and cheaper shows (reality TV) to make up the difference in revenue they lost.
I don't like the content providers either (give me a la carte or give me death!) but TWC and Comcast at two separate negotiating tables is much better for consumers than a merged monolith at one table.
Weren't they trying to merge with Comcast? (Score:2)
I thought the idea was that Comcast was merging with Time Warner in order to strengthen their cable monopoly. Is Time Warner's ISP a different business than Time Warner's content company or something?
Re:Weren't they trying to merge with Comcast? (Score:5, Informative)
Is Time Warner's ISP a different business than Time Warner's content company or something?
Yeah, Time Warner spun off Time Warner Cable in 2009 as a separate company.
Re:Weren't they trying to merge with Comcast? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Time Warner, Inc (what this story is referring to) is a different company from Time Warner Cable (which Comcast is looking to acquire).
Its also different from TW Telecom (formerly Time Warner Telecom, which is being acquired by Level 3.
Its a complicated mess of mergers and spinoffs...
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Re:Weren't they trying to merge with Comcast? (Score:5, Funny)
That case was solved by sorting them into either "Verizon" or "AT&T".
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There's a whole slew of ex-TW companies that kept various parts of the name. It's kind of a mess, possibly deliberately.
As another example: the entertainment production company, Warner Bros., which produced both films and music, was acquired by Time Warner. Fast-forward some decades, and there are now two companies named Warner, one of which is part of TW and one of which isn't. The film part is still known as Warner Bros and is still owned by Time Warner. The music part, formerly known as Warner Bros Music
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You're mostly right, except that Warner Communications which owned both Warner Bros. Studio and Warner Music (Warner Bros. Records at the time) merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner. They weren't bought; they're the "Warner" half of Time Warner, with Time Inc. being the other half.
But yeah, there were a ton of spin-offs and sales all through the 90's and 2000's.
There is no Time for Time Warner (Score:2)
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Back in the mid-80s, Fox bought a software system from Warner Brothers. (I was there at the time at Fox, and there was an intern from a Warner exec who was a pain...liked tagging stuff) Murdoch was considered an idiot by Fox employees. He ran out of gas on a holiday in LA, called up the studio, and had the only security guard on duty come out to help out. Oh yeah, there was a Die Hard movie filmed at a skyscraper in Century City owned by Fox. They didn't want to add enough any inches for a raised floor comp
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And isn't it curious that a former CEO of Time Warner is on the board of directors at Comcast.
http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/leadership-overview/joseph-j-collins
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Yeah it's a little hard to keep up with now but since i bought stock before all this madness I'm way to aware!
TW split into TWC TWX and AOL, then recently they've split of TIME the magazine portion.
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Strong Belief in your business (Score:1)
Thank God (Score:1)
All I can say is that if we actually had decent anti-trust enforcement (YAGTDRR - Yet Another Good Thing Destroyed by Ronald Reagan), these mergers wouldn't even be an issue to begin with. Since they are, thank God this one seems not be going forward.
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What about the opposite idea? If your company has over 70% monopoly in a specific sector for over five years, it has to be split into two new companies and must compete with each other.
Define sector (Score:2)
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I was merely saying that the issue is extremely complex on each extreme ends of the problem.
I guess we could add "but only if competition exists" but then we'd have to define competition. Just trying to define a law can be an endless process because you need to try and catch all possibilities and define everything in details.
Do cars compete with bicycles? (Score:2)
Sectors are defined by a market
Lawyers spend a lot of time trying to convince judges to adopt a definition of relevant product market [wikipedia.org] that gives their respective clients an advantage in competition court. Here's another example: Does GM compete against, say, Trek [wikipedia.org] and Specialized [wikipedia.org] in the personal transportation sector?
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If you're trying to sound more intelligent than OP, here's some advice:
1. Spell "Reagan" correctly.
2. Use single periods to end sentences, not double periods.
3. "Obamatrons" - a plural - does not use an apostrophe.
4. Learn about, and use, commas.
5. Pro-tip: If you want to squeeze an Appeal to Authority past people in an argument, don't use yourself as the authority.
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This is really a mater of modern convention. Webster's has a good ask the editor video entry on the history of the two forms and how often they changed. Your likely right that most people are ignorantly using the wrong form, but like many things in our language its silly to get upset about it with out some sense of etymology.
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And the Republicans will blame Clinton for everything
I don't see how, given how much more the Gingrich House got done than the Boehner House has.
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And the Republicans will blame Clinton for everything
I don't see how, given how much more the Gingrich House got done than the Boehner House has.
Because blowjobs!
Queue all the TWX/TWC/TWTC confusion in (Score:4, Insightful)
3...2...1....
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It depends on how badly he wants it.
He can do a hostile take over which basically means he or his company ends up cpntrolling 51 percent of the voting stock and puts his own management team in charge and forces a merger.
He doesn't have to own 51% of the stock, just enough to be able to vote and somehow manage to get enough other stock holders to side with him ( and yes, paying them is a valid tactic).
DC in the hands of Fox (Score:2, Funny)
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Doom Patrol instead of X-Men (Score:2)
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But if Fox bought the rights to the Doom Patrol, it wouldn't have to pay continuing royalties to Marvel to keep the X-Men film rights. Instead, it could let the rights revert to Marvel and just make Doom Patrol movies.* And if Marvel got the X-Men rights back, the Avengers would then be free to cross over with everything but Peter "Irving Spiderman" Parker, whose film rights Sony owns.
* Notwithstanding nuisance trademark lawsuits from Zenimax, which owns Doom and Id Software's catalog. If it has shown it
Remember AOLTimeWarner? (Score:1)
Its Public Relations Spin... (Score:2)
After sharing headlines with AOL, Comcast, and now Rupert Murdoch they may have run out of worse alternatives...
Assemble (Score:2)
Now I'll never see spider man in the avengers
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Nope, not thinking straight. Now I'll never get Spiderman vs Batman.
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Time-Warner owns DC comics (Score:2)
The subject line says it all.
No. No. No.
Secret Illuminati Plot... (Score:2)