Comic and media mogul Byron Allen has reportedly made a $10 billion provide to accumulate the ABC TV community, FX and Nationwide Geographic cable channels, and native stations from Walt Disney, in accordance with a report from Bloomberg. The publication’s supply claims that the provide is “preliminary and will change,” and that Allen would work with banks and personal fairness corporations to finance the deal.
Disney has but to publicly acknowledge Allen’s provide. In a statement published earlier this week, the corporate mentioned it was “open to contemplating a wide range of strategic choices for our linear companies” in response to rumors that it was in talks to sell the aforementioned properties to Nexstar Media Group. Bloomberg’s report claims that Allen could unload the non-ABC affiliated native TV stations he already owns to keep away from the deal inflicting tensions with different networks like CBS and NBC.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has taken a number of cost-cutting measures lately to scale back overhead spending, including layoffs and restructuring key parts of the company. In an interview with CNBC again in July, Iger mentioned the corporate was additionally contemplating promoting off a few of its linear TV property amid market disruption that started in the course of the covid pandemic. Disney’s portfolio of conventional TV networks consists of the ABC community and cable TV channels like ESPN.
The provide for ABC isn’t an uncommon transfer for Allen. The comedian-turned-producer has invested $1.3 billion over the previous few years so as to add new property to his media portfolio, together with the Climate Channel and a string of native stations from Honolulu to Tucson. Not each bid to buy different media properties has been profitable, nevertheless, and those who had been have saddled his firm — Allen Media — with a fair bit of debt.
We’re certain to study extra when Allen takes the stage on the Code conference, which is being co-hosted by Verge Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel beginning on September twenty sixth.