Comcast, the giant U.S. cable company outfit, said this morning that it will not merge with the Walt Disney Co.
"It has become clear that there is no interest on the part of Disney's management and Board in putting Comcast and Disney together," Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in a company press release announcing the decision. "As a result, we have withdrawn our offer."
The $54-billion (U.S.) deal would have been the biggest convergence play since America Online Inc. swallowed up Time Warner inc. Convergence, incidentally, for me, is when a distribution company buys a content company. AOL-Time Warner is a good example and, here in Canada, BCE's acquisition of the assets that make up my company, Bell Globemedia, is another good example.
Many in my industry think convergence is a media company owning outlets in two different media, say print and TV or TV and radio, but to my way of thinking, that kind of cross-media ownership has been around for years. (Think of the CBC and its TV and radio stuff.)
The political, cultural, and economic implications of a true convergence play -- wires vs content -- are, it seems to me, much more significant than a TV station owner buying a newspaper property.
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