Walt Disney Co. is near to cutting multiyear deals to continue supplying billions worth of content to the two largest U.S. cable operators, according to unnamed sources. The negotiations--with Comcast
Corp. and Time Warner Cable--have been going on for years, and are focused on license fees Disney will charge for ESPN, the Disney Channel and its other networks.
The Comcast deal, which
could possibly be announced within weeks, also calls for the company to buy Disney's 39.5% stake in E! Entertainment Television for about $1.2 billion. Comcast already pays Disney about $1 billion a
year in fees for the basic-cable channels, while Time Warner--about half its size--pays substantially less.
"Comcast will get the best deal in the industry" because of its size, says
industry analyst Laura Martin of Soleil/Media Metrics. "Time Warner will get the second-best deal. And everyone else will [negotiate] prices off those."
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