For a moment it felt like Disney’s attempt to acquire Fox could be in jeopardy when Comcast threw in a bid of their own. However it seems that Disney really wants Fox when they countered with a substantially higher bid, and while all of this sounds good, there is the question of whether or not it will be approved by the US Department of Justice.After all given the size of Disney and Fox, a merger could result in monopolistic behavior. However for those who have been watching the deal, the good news is that it looks like the US DoJ has approved it. However there will be a catch to this approval, and that is that Disney will need to divest itself of Fox’s various regional sports networks.
According to anti-trust chief Makan Delrahim, “American consumers have benefitted from head-to-head competition between Disney and Fox’s cable sports programming that ultimately has prevented cable television subscription prices from rising even higher. Today’s settlement will ensure that sports programming competition is preserved in the local markets where Disney and Fox compete for cable and satellite distribution.”
Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a done deal as a federal judge will still need to approve it. However given that we’ve seen many deals fall apart due to anti-trust concerns, the fact that Disney has managed to clear this hurdle is definitely a good sign.
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