• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 11, 2023

Linear TV is still very profitable -- at the moment -- in a big way. The challenge for all TV network groups is: how much time do they have until the profits run out? 

Three years? Five years? Ten years?

Take Disney -- look at all its domestic TV networks. Disney made $1.9 billion in operating income in its most recent quarterly period -- down 14% versus the same period a year ago.

Of course, this is for the most part going in one direction. Profit margins continue to shrink. 

One would think that when Chief Executive Officer of Walt Disney Bob Iger said he was considering the idea of selling its linear TV networks nearly a month ago, his next big public appearance would move the needle a bit.

That is not what happened on Wednesday during Disney's latest quarterly earnings release.

In between this time period, reports examined who it could be. While there were many to consider -- especially those big digital media companies -- one name kept popping up: Apple. 

Finding a willing buyer for Disney's TV networks is only half of the problem. The other half is finding a company that would keep selling TV content to Disney to use on its streaming services.

“If we are to do anything significant in what I’ll call strategic direction with the linear nets, we have to keep in mind the need for content ultimately to fuel our D2C businesses,” said Iger, on Wednesday.

Iger's thinking must be that not only would that buyer want those still money-making TV networks, but they would be looking to have Disney’s TV production studio as well to feed TV shows/movies for its TV series needs.

Perhaps Disney would like to keep its TV production studios -- or at least have partnerships of sorts so it has access to those creative sources -- including writers, actors, and producers.

And that's not the only complicated partnership Disney might be looking at. Disney wants major sports leagues to perhaps take a minority stake or bigger investment in ESPN.

The thinking is that it would be in ESPN's best interest to have stable sports league partners -- NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. -- so it would not have to continually re-up on big sports rights fees every five, ten, or more years.

Like Disney+, ESPN wants to have consistent and predictable access to content going forward.

So who might step in to make this kind of a deal? Even the biggest well-funded digital media players -- Apple, Amazon, Google -- have their own needs to expand their media businesses.

Content is not only king -- a ruler is pulling more strings over his kingdom.