21st Century Fox will sell its remaining stake in British pay TV provider Sky to Comcast in the latest financial wrangling as Disney prepares to acquire Fox's entertainment assets.
Over the weekend, Comcast won a rare bidding auction for 61 percent of Sky offering 17.28 pounds per share, almost 30 billion pounds ($39 billion). Fox will sell its 39 percent stake to for 11.6 billion pounds ($15.25 billion).
Last December a bidding war between Walt Disney Co. and Comcast began over Fox's entertainment assets. Walt Disney Co. prevailed and is in the process acquiring Fox. Comcast dropped out of that contest to focus on its acquisition of Sky.
Disney says the sale will significantly reduce the amount of debt it is taking on by acquiring Fox's entertainment assets.
ESPN and other channels return to DirecTV with a new Disney deal after a nearly 2-week blackout
DirecTV announced Saturday it had reached a deal with Walt Disney Co. that will restore ESPN and ABC-owned stations to its service after a nearly 2-week dispute that blacked out those networks for millions of viewers across the U.S.
The end of the impasse came in time for sports fans to watch ESPN's slate of college football games on DirecTV. It also will ensure that ABC's telecast of the Emmy Awards on Sunday night will be available in more major markets where viewers subscribe to DirecTV's pay service.
ABC had been unavailable since Sept. 1 on DirecTV in several markets where the station is owned by Disney. Those were located in the San Francisco Bay Area; Fresno, California; New York; Chicago; Philadelphia; Houston; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
DirecTV's 11 million subscribers abruptly lost access to ESPN, the ABC-owned stations and other Disney-owned channels such as FX and National Geographic during the Labor Day weekend in a dispute over carriage fees and programming flexibility.
Some viewers were watching the fourth round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament when ESPN suddenly went dark and others were getting ready to watch a college football showdown between LSU and Southern California.
The impasse also kept the NFL's opening game of Monday Night Football off of DirecTV's service.
Financial details of Disney's new deal with DirecTV weren't disclosed as part of Saturday's announcement. DirecTV's payments to Disney will be based on "market-based" pricing, according to the announcement about the deal.
The agreement also will give DirecTV the ability to offer Disney's video streaming services a la carte as well as in its own bundled packages. DirecTV won the right to include ESPN's forthcoming direct-to-consumer... Read More