Word: comcasts
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...Comcast's gibes sound a lot like the criticisms flowing from shareholders who have grown irate over Eisner's stewardship. He has been contending with a shareholder uprising led by ex-board members Roy Disney and his partner, Stanley Gold. The duo quit the company last fall, fed up with Eisner's alleged mismanagement, and are trying to persuade shareholders not to re-elect him at the company's annual meeting on March 3. Eisner suffered a body blow when Steve Jobs, Pixar Animation Studio's boss, decided not to renew a co-production and distribution agreement after 10 months...
...anyone with CEO potential. Disney has suffered an exodus of executives during his tenure. Its cast members no longer include execs like Paul Pressler, now at Gap; Geraldine Laybourne, who quit to co-found Oxygen Media; and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the man behind The Lion King, who co-founded DreamWorks. Comcast's No. 2 executive, Burke, is a fast-track escapee. He spent 12 years at Disney and proved himself a skilled executive by recharging Disney's consumer-products division (it faltered after he left) and reviving Euro Disney (another recent relapse), then working in Disney's TV-networks business. Katzenberg...
With estimated annual profits of $1 billion and a market value of $15 billion to $20 billion, ESPN, launched in 1979 with a lineup that included Australian Rules Football and gocart racing, became Disney's go-to asset as its theme parks and ABC faltered. Comcast Cable president Stephen Burke leaves no doubt that acquiring ESPN is a prime motivation for his bid. "Warren Buffett has said he likes businesses that are like a castle with a big moat around it," says Burke. "ESPN is a great castle with a very big moat." ESPN's Sunday Night Football...
...Comcast wins ESPN, Burke and CEO Brian Roberts can not only sidestep the haggling over ESPN's high prices but also provide its cable brethren the more favorable rates that Comcast is seeking. "We might take a softer approach," says a Comcast official. Then again, they might not. Says S.P. Kothari, a merger expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "Comcast shareholders will not let the company give up this power. They will say, 'What the heck, are we running a charity shop?'" Plus, ESPN may need to maximize revenues to keep pace with its escalating cost of rights fees...
ESPN employees are counting on Comcast to be less synergy minded than the Mouse. They bristle at promoting Disney movies on their jock network, even though cross promotion is standard operating procedure at media conglomerates (and ESPN certainly isn't shy about endlessly pushing its programs, such as the X Games). But there is one part of Disney they want to retain, says an ESPN worker: "I just hope they keep our free theme-park passes...