Earlier this week, a Bloomberg report said Disney had held “initial” talks about a sale of ABC and its local stations to Nexstar, the local TV giant and owner of The CW network.
The Bloomberg story and subsequent Disney pushback came after Tom Carter, a former Nexstar executive and current adviser to the company, told a Bank of America conference Wednesday that should Disney’s ABC stations become available, Nexstar would be able to buy them with “little friction.”
Disney has now issued a statement in response to that report.
“While we are open to considering a variety of strategic options for our linear businesses, at this time The Walt Disney Company has made no decision with respect to the divestiture of ABC or any other property and any report to that effect is unfounded.”
According to THR, Disney CEO Bob Iger got the M&A rumor mill rumbling in July, when he told CNBC that Disney’s linear TV channels, including ABC, “may not be core” to the company’s business anymore, calling the distribution model “broken.”
“Transformative work is dealing with businesses that are no-growth businesses and what to do about them, and particularly the linear business, which we are expansive in our thinking about,” Iger told CNBC
Source: The Hollywood Reporter