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Fox in talks to sell to Disney


The Frog

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Some of your theories are a bit “out there.” Sinclair buying ESPN? No chance in hell. ABC isn’t getting rid of ESPN anytime soon.

 

Sinclair isn't having much luck shopping their own sports channel to non Sinclair stations. Despite its issues, ESPN is still a cash cow for Disney, the issue is margins, and there is no way they will part with it.

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Watch for the FSNs to be renamed "ESPN (region/city)".

ESPN Radio currently mandates branding for the majority of their affiliates by that standard (ESPN LA, ESPN New York, ESPN Chicago, ESPN Cleveland, etc.). Doing the exact same with the RSNs would itself be confusing in that regard.

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Could Disney use a new brand for the RSNs? Or revive a name like "SportsChannel"?

Fox actually has two RSNs in Ohio: Fox Sports Ohio (one for Cleveland cable systems and one for Cincinnati cable systems) and SportsTime Ohio (launched by the Cleveland Indians in a YES setup with WKYC before selling to Fox).

 

Why not use “SportsTime” as a brand for all of them?

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Fox actually has two RSNs in Ohio: Fox Sports Ohio (one for Cleveland cable systems and one for Cincinnati cable systems) and SportsTime Ohio (launched by the Cleveland Indians in a YES setup with WKYC before selling to Fox).

 

Why not use “SportsTime” as a brand for all of them?

 

Well considering Disney is buying the networks, I see ESPN Ohio and ESPN Florida and ESPN West, etc.

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ESPN Radio currently mandates branding for the majority of their affiliates by that standard (ESPN LA, ESPN New York, ESPN Chicago, ESPN Cleveland, etc.). Doing the exact same with the RSNs would itself be confusing in that regard.

 

It definitely opens up the opportunity for synergy between their radio and RSN brands.

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Also worth noting that included in the deal is 21CF current 39% stake in Sky. So Disney will be owning a portion of SkyNews.

 

I belive that if the 21CF /Sky buyout passes Disney will own it in full.

Didn’t Disney have an ownership stake in one of the ITV franchises back in the 1980s or 1990s?

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Didn’t Disney have an ownership stake in one of the ITV franchises back in the 1980s or 1990s?

 

Yes, GMTV, the ITV national breakfast contractor.

 

(The ITV structure never made sense to me - a separate breakfast contractor, separate contractors for London weekday and weekend, but that's for another thread/website)

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Yes, GMTV, the ITV national breakfast contractor.

Aha. That’s it.

 

For some reason I though it was TVS, but that franchise was the other way around ... it bought MTM Productions from Mary Tyler Moore and Grant Tinker, then sold it to Pat Robertson’s Family Entertainment.

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Also worth noting that included in the deal is 21CF current 39% stake in Sky. So Disney will be owning a portion of SkyNews.

 

I belive that if the 21CF /Sky buyout passes Disney will own it in full.

 

AP says 21CF will still try to close the deal to get the rest of Sky, and if they do close, they'll hand over the remaining 61% to the Mouse.

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Well considering Disney is buying the networks, I see ESPN Ohio and ESPN Florida and ESPN West, etc.

 

I would go with ESPN Local ______. There will be exceptions. I don't see them changing YES' name. A few others arond too. There are several examples of multiple FSNs - Florida has FSN Florida and FSN Sun. ESPN has too large of a brand equity to not use it in most cases. Having seen FSN Midwest in the STL area, this may be good news in terms of improving the production quality. I would not be surprised if all RSN studio shows are run out of Bristol unless there is a couple of exceptions.

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AP says 21CF will still try to close the deal to get the rest of Sky, and if they do close, they'll hand over the remaining 61% to the Mouse.

 

That makes no sense. I doubt the British regulators would move forward now since 21CF is selling their ownership in Sky to Disney. They will want Disney to reapply (and it will be a much easier approval assuming the Brian Ross thing does not get in the way). It is clear that the regulators do not see 21CF as being fit between the newspaper hacking scandal a few years ago and the rampant sexual harassment situation at Fox News. It may have been an impetus of the Murdochs considering this strategy.

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I would go with ESPN Local ______. There will be exceptions. I don't see them changing YES' name. A few others arond too. There are several examples of multiple FSNs - Florida has FSN Florida and FSN Sun. ESPN has too large of a brand equity to not use it in most cases. Having seen FSN Midwest in the STL area, this may be good news in terms of improving the production quality. I would not be surprised if all RSN studio shows are run out of Bristol unless there is a couple of exceptions.

ESPN Sports (City) might also work.

 

As for the Florida channels, FSN Florida should become ESPN South Florida or ESPN Miami, and FSN Sun should become ESPN Central Florida (covering Tampa Bay and Orlando area teams).

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ESPN Sports (City) might also work.

 

As for the Florida channels, FSN Florida should become ESPN South Florida or ESPN Miami, and FSN Sun should become ESPN Central Florida (covering Tampa Bay and Orlando area teams).

I'm not sure how that would work in markets where Fox Sports has regional networks that overlap each other. For example, in my neck of the woods, we have both Fox Sports South and Fox Sports Southeast (formerly SportSouth).

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ESPN Radio currently mandates branding for the majority of their affiliates by that standard (ESPN LA, ESPN New York, ESPN Chicago, ESPN Cleveland, etc.). Doing the exact same with the RSNs would itself be confusing in that regard.

 

I’d argue quite the opposite. It would create greater synergy between the two.

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I’d argue quite the opposite. It would create greater synergy between the two.

 

In many of these smaller ESPN radio stations you will be hard pressed to create any synergy of any value because these stations have zero sports or even local promotions people. Synergy is useless unless you have the money and staff to participate. Sure it makes total sense...but it's really only practical in the largest markets.

 

Radio is broke also.

So if you want to "mandate" radio synergy then you better be ready to kick me down the money for staff.

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I’d argue quite the opposite. It would create greater synergy between the two.

Except that many of the radio affiliates are their own separate entities owned by third parties, and no doubt want to continue in that direction.

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