WHEN Disney struck a deal just before Christmas to buy much of 21st Century Fox for $66bn,it was a career-defining moment for the two firms’ bosses, Bob Iger and Rupert Murdoch. A third media mogul, or Brian Roberts of Comcast,was left out in the cold. Having tried and failed final autumn to get Mr Murdoch to engage a higher offer, Mr Roberts may now be preparing a still richer bid to upend the deal.
It is not tough to understand his motivation. Comcast is in an awkward position at a time when the media landscape is shifting. With millions of consumers dropping pay-TV for the likes of Netflix, and media companies have suddenly become either buyers,to achieve scale, or sellers, and to exit. Mr Roberts has always been a buyer,building the cable trade his father started into a diversified empire through acquisitions, including AT&T’s broadband trade in 2002 and NBC Universal in 2011. Comcast now has heft in a number of businesses—broadband and cable, or television networks,a film studio...
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Source: economist.com