Discovery Communications’ takeover of US cable rival Scripps Networks Interactive is drawing near after shareholders agreed to the deal.
The US$14.6 billion deal brings networks such as Discovery Channel and Animal Planet together with the Food Network and HGTV.
Discovery’s shareholder overwhelmingly voted in favour of the agreement, with more than 258 million for and less then three million against.
More than 102 million Scripps stockowners voted for the deal, with around 273,000 against it.
Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav claims the deal will take his firm past The Walt Disney Company as the world’s leading owner of IP, and plans to push the Food Network and HGTV brands as international channel brands.
Scripps shareholders will own around 20% of the enlarged Discovery, with around US$2.7 billion taken on in debt.
Discovery expects the deal to close in early 2018, but the Department of Justice has taken a firm hand to AT&T’s proposed takeover of Time Warner, and key Discovery shareholder John Malone has told investors the Scripps deal is attracting more regulatory attention than anticipated.
ICYMI: Amazon set for US$1 billion NFL streaming deal digitaltveurope.com/2021/03/05/ama… https://t.co/v8pAI05Ujn
05 March 2021 @ 21:00:00 UTC
ICYMI: @paramountplus launches digitaltveurope.com/2021/03/05/par… https://t.co/3j69bw7Jvn
05 March 2021 @ 20:00:01 UTC
ICYMI: Digital TV Europe is excited to announce the release of our 2021 Industry Survey!
Thank you to our sponsors… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
05 March 2021 @ 19:00:02 UTC
DTVE: the week in view – The live-streaming revolution digitaltveurope.com/comment/the-li… https://t.co/pt7qxb6Ul7
05 March 2021 @ 18:32:30 UTC
Vodafone Portugal gets Gametoon in renewed SPI/FilmBox deal digitaltveurope.com/2021/03/05/vod… https://t.co/I0gFmgtOFb
05 March 2021 @ 18:00:00 UTC