The Disney+ logo is displayed during San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, on July 24. (Chris Delmas – AFP / Getty Images)
Disney Speaks Up as Trump Deregulation Set to Completely Shake-Up Media Landscape
By Bryan Chai November 17, 2024 at 6:33am
It didn’t take long for President-elect Donald Trump’s election day victory to already send all sorts of reverberations throughout the world.
The victory helped goose the stock market; it triggered all manner of reaction from celebrities, athletes and politicians alike, and it also appeared to have some manner of effect of worldly tensions.
A big reason for those reverberations is because Trump has already made a number of his near-future policy proposals crystal clear, and it’s obvious that Trump’s second stab at president will challenge the norm even more than his first stint.
One major issue that Trump has vowed to tackle is America’s very layered business regulations, which the president-elect has long argued stifles economic growth.
As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, a number of media corporations are salivating at the thought of Trump’s pending deregulation due to how much easier it could be to merge with or acquire other major assets.
“It does feel like a cloud over the industry is lifting here, and we do think some much needed modernization of the regulations will be forthcoming,” Sinclair executive Chris Ripley said.
And that lifting cloud has invigorated Sinclair’s plans, per Ripley: “We intend to participate in that, in the [mergers and acquisitions] in the industry, be it as a buyer as a seller or a merger partner.”
Other executives cited by the Reporter echoed similar eager sentiments.
That is, except for embattled Disney CEO Bob Iger.
Do you think Disney will actually abstain from buying anything?
According to the head of the House of Mouse, Disney feels that it is big enough as it is and doesn’t need to merge with anything nor acquire anything.
“We, in many respects, have already consolidated. We don’t really need more assets right now, either from a distribution or from a content perspective, to thrive in basically a disruptive media world,” Iger said, who also cited Disney’s growing streaming library post-Fox merger as another reason not to further grow.
For Disney fans hoping for a turnaround in quality, this should be welcome news.
One of the most oft-cited critiques on social media is that Disney’s multimedia portfolio is already quite bloated.
And critics who were accusing Disney of going for “quantity over quality” were given fodder with a string of poorly received Disney shows and movies.
Another reason for Disney’s lack of interest in M&A? The company has a staggering number of projects still coming out.
According to entertainment site IGN, Disney has nine major Star Wars projects in the pipeline.
According to Variety, there are 19 announced Marvel projects on Disney’s slate.
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