Amazon's Planned Purchase of MGM To Be Reviewed by FTC (wsj.com) 25
The Federal Trade Commission will be the agency to review Amazon's proposed acquisition of Hollywood studio MGM, Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter, just as the commission gets a new chairwoman who has been critical of the online giant's expansion. From a report: Amazon last month announced its deal for MGM, which would boost its Prime Video streaming platform in a market that includes rivals such as Netflix and Walt Disney. MGM has a library of more than 4,000 films, including the James Bond franchise, and a TV catalog that includes "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Vikings." Companies doing sizable mergers have to submit their deals for government antitrust review. The FTC shares antitrust authority with the Justice Department, and the two agencies split up the work of reviewing proposed deals. The department has recently reviewed transactions involving video content, including Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox and AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner, a deal the department unsuccessfully attempted to block in court.
Library (Score:2)
MGM's primary worth is in their film library and IP rights. Lately they haven't been making much new content beyond remakes and continuations of existing series (Rocky, Bond, Legally Blonde.)
Though, to be entirely fair, that seems to be, mostly, what major studios are doing nowadays.
Re: (Score:3)
Rehashing old IP is low risk and brings in moderate profits. It's a reliable business like being a plumber or electrician. Long term MGM will probably die if they can't produce new things. I was going to say "fill seats" but honestly that's one of the things the film industry is finding different. All businesses fail, eventually. (well except King Arthur Flour has been around for some 200+ years, and drummers know that Zildjian has been making cymbals for almost 400 years)
Re: (Score:3)
MGM has far superior facilities than Amazon does for producing new content, which I think might be part of the intent. Prime Video has had to cobble everything together piecemeal, the possibility of having one nice big well-equipped facility has got to be tempting.
Re: (Score:2)
MGM has far superior facilities than Amazon does for producing new content, which I think might be part of the intent.
You mean their studios? They sold those off to Sony during their last bankruptcy. MGM mainly consists of an office tower in Century City now.
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon a planning to buy content to force a content monopoly to force ads on streaming services, ads for AMAZON only. That is the douche bag plan. The more they can monopolise content the more ads for Amazon products they can FORCE.
Train has left the station (Score:2)
I would say this deal should absolutely be blocked as it looks like media much like food, defense and other sectors have become increasingly concentrated but it looks pretty hypocritical and biased to block this when the other two deals were allowed to pass and those were purchases of much larger media firms, especially the Disney/Fox merger.
One can also make the case that such consolidation of industries is a natural consequence under capitalist systems and is not necessarily something that is a negative b
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you on other areas of concern with media, however Amazon is limited in media compared to the other monoliths in the industry. Wapo through Bezos and their streaming platform, plus their army of lawyers writing cease and desists for bad stories on their warehouses consist of their current media control. i'd approve it on condition of complete acceptance of determination on any future Amazon mergers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What killed the radio star was video.
Re: (Score:3)
Yup, and we can't rewind, we've gone too far...
Re: (Score:1)
I read you on the Usenet back in '82
Staying awake all night browsing in on you
Tho I was young, it didn't stop you coming through
Oh-a-oh..
Amazon's Planned Purchase of MGM (Score:2)
FTFY.
The current FTC never saw a merger it didn't love. It's why prices keep going up (and not, as some would suggest, marginally higher wages for the girl who makes your lunch).
Re: (Score:2)
To Be Rubber Stamped by the FTC.
FTFY.
The current FTC never saw a merger it didn't love.
You might be confusing the old FTC with the new FTC as they recently got themselves a new commissioner and chairwoman [axios.com] who's been very vocal against big tech [bbc.com], particularly Amazon [yalelawjournal.org]
Unexpected? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The only news here would be if they didn't rubberstamp it.
Mixed feeling (Score:3)
I would not want any more "synergy" on the media sector, especially after Disney owning most of the franchises I like (Star Wars, X-Men, Marvel, Pixar). However MGM is really struggling. They were even unable to capitalize on the excellent 007 franchise, and niche ones like Stargate are almost completely abandoned.
So they need a "big brother" infusing them with cash to stay alive. Otherwise they will just go bankrupt, and those franchises will go for even lower amounts.
That being said, is Amazon the best choice? No, definitely not.
The "too big" issues aside, their handling of science-fiction is a bit hit and miss. Some series received real care (The Man in the High Castle, The Expanse), but many others were obviously mishandled / cut short (The Tick, Upload, and many many more). Like Netflix, they only worry about "new signups", and not so much about keeping things going for many seasons.
Pffffff (Score:2)
They let AT&T buy Warner Media.
( and you can bet Amazon is going to be quick to point that out )
I'm genuinely curious what it takes for the FTC to actually say NO to something.