While the industry waits to see if Rupert Murdoch will manage to gobble up Time Warner, NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke seems comfortable with the content holdings he has.
Burke told analysts in a earnings call on Tuesday that “we certainly don’t feel we have to bulk up in content,” in order to compete with a potential 21st Century Fox/Time Warner.
Meanwhile, Time Warner changed its corporate bylaws to make a takeover tougher. On Monday, Time Warner filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying that its board of directors had voted to remove provisions that would allow stockholders to call a special meetings where things such as hostile takeovers could be considered and approved against the board’s will. Now, only the CEO or a majority of directors can call such a meeting. The company plans to reinstate the rules in 2015, the filing said.
Analysts expect 21st Century Fox to up its original offer in the coming weeks, and also wouldn’t be surprised to see rival offers come in the door, with such firms as Disney, Google, Amazon, Apple and Verizon all considered suitors. Besides changing its bylaws, Time Warner may be considering other strategies to stifle Murdoch, including buying CBS, to create a regulatory roadblock, or Discovery, to up the corporation’s price tag,
READ MORE: THR, B&C, Los Angeles Times
Brief Take: As the economy has improved, industry consolidation—especially among the TV station groups and independent production companies—has been the norm. Still, whether a merger as large as one between 21st Century Fox and Time Warner would be good for the industry remains to be seen.
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