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Once I heard a story about Disney buying ABC (quotes not exact). DreamWorks had hired some of Eisner's top guys producing TV animation and had a deal lined up
by zach 16y ago
Once I heard a story about Disney buying ABC (quotes not exact).
DreamWorks had hired some of Eisner's top guys producing TV animation and had a deal lined up to produce a slate of shows for ABC's Saturday morning lineup, which was a big deal in the mid-90s for a just-starting studio like DreamWorks. Of course, when Disney bought ABC, that deal quietly came to a end, and eventually so did DreamWorks' TV animation department.
Jeffrey Katzenberg was asked by one of his staff why he thought Disney bought ABC. He was convinced that what Eisner most wanted was to take the ABC Saturday morning lineup away from DreamWorks -- to torpedo one of Jeffrey's first deals at his new company.
The staff member said, "But come on, this is business, this is a nineteen billion dollar deal! Nobody pays billions of dollars in order to personally screw someone over." Jeffrey laughed and replied, "No, when it's that much money, it's always personal."
- stevenj 16y agoI recently read that Disney primarily bought CapCities/ABC because of ESPN. http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11617149 http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11617149
- zach 16y agoIt's certainly the reason you would cite now, with 20/20 hindsight. The power of the broadcast networks went downhill pretty soon after that deal, so it seems curious that Disney (then mostly a theme park operator and movie studio) would buy the whole shebang in order to get a sports network. Maybe Eisner would understand that by buying ESPN, in ten years he would have the greatest leverage against cable operators in carriage deal negotiations. Maybe. He also bought Fox Family for $3 billion six years later. I wonder what he's saying about that deal now.
- tedunangst 16y agoYour story is a little hard to follow because you have both ABC buying Disney and Disney buying ABC.