Disney, Not Netflix, Will Dominate

From the Fox merger to its OTT launch, next year is all about the mouse.

- Jason Lynch

2019 will be the year of the pig— except in the TV industry, where it will be the year of the Mouse. That’s because Disney is going to dominate 2019, bookending it with a pair of seismic moves. The first is the imminent close of the DisneyFox merger, which will relocate most of 21st Century Fox’s assets (FX, National Geographic and the Twentieth Television studio among them) to the Mouse House; the rest, including Fox Broadcasting, Fox News and Fox Sports, will be spun off into a new iteration of Fox. Then there’s the year-end launch of Disney’s long-awaited subscription streaming service, Disney+.

Even with more than a year of preparation, the Disney-Fox merger will be a bumpy transition that will be felt throughout the industry as FX and National Geographic adjust to their new homes and bosses, and buyers adapt to a new method of purchasing that inventory. The same transformation (and consolidation) will occur at “New Fox,” where ad-sales operations will be combined for the entire portfolio under Marianne Gambelli.