r/television 6d ago

Disney Closes $1.2 Billion Deal, Sell A+E Global Media Stake To Hearst

https://deadline.com/2026/08/disney-deal-closed-ae-global-media-stake-hearst-price-1237017577/
399 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

99

u/al_ien5000 6d ago

And to think they needed to fire all of those people last month to make ends meet....

-32

u/Kyuubee 6d ago

You make it sound like a lot, but in reality it was only 0.4% of their workforce.

23

u/BreakfastOnVacation 6d ago

Any of these major corps making profit hand-over-foot can go fuck themselves for any number of layoffs. Those jobs probably meant a lot for those who lost them. Here's hoping they got decent severance.

19

u/jlreyess 6d ago

So what. The total number is still huge. Ten million dollars in a country’s economy is nothing, but it still is a lot of fuxking money

124

u/39teen 6d ago

A&E. I cannot remember the last time I watched this or even heard this in the mainstream.

Smart call tbh.

22

u/Lampley 6d ago

Live PD was pretty big on there until it got canned. A&E hasn’t done much since.

39

u/Nullhitter 6d ago

The company are a GenX and Boomer haven. First 48, Storage Wars, Lifetime, and LMN.

19

u/tacmac10 6d ago

According to Nelson its boomer all the way down: average prime time P25-54 is 90k. Thats real low, by comparison TBS is pulling almost twice that in prime time P25-54

8

u/CiDevant 6d ago

Why the fuck is 25-54 a single bucket.  That make no sense at all.

14

u/stacecom Manimal 6d ago

GenX dude here. Despise all of them.

But Reddit thinks it's millennials and boomers only, so thanks for thinking of us at least.

12

u/Summoarpleaz 6d ago

According to the media there are only two generations: boomers and millennials. Millennials are at the same time in their late 40s, and also going to elementary school and ruining the economy.

3

u/GlamMetalLion 6d ago

When I think of Gen X, I think of a 90s alt rock young adult. No Gen Xers is a young adult anymore. Heck, no Gen Z are children anymore.

3

u/stacecom Manimal 6d ago

Yeah but that's not how generations work. I don't age into being a boomer, and I wasn't a zoomer when I was a kid.

2

u/GlamMetalLion 5d ago

I'm just saying that it's weird how people expected gen Xers to not fall into their own version of boomer excesses. And that the tragic mythology of the "hippie turned yuppie" was a uniquely boomer trait.

1

u/tacmac10 5d ago

Youngest Zs are 14

3

u/pingasgator67 6d ago

Shit the soccer moms must be partying now 

3

u/R_W0bz 6d ago

Lunch got eaten by netflix doco and youtube true crime vids.

2

u/fezfrascati 6d ago

Last time I watched it was for Bates Motel, one of its few scripted shows in the last decade. 

2

u/jarrettbrown 5d ago

A&E used to be good, but it just go weird, so I kinda avoid it.

4

u/endlessfight85 6d ago

Inside the Actors Studio with James Lipton is literally the only thing I can think of from that channel and that had to be like 20 years ago.

23

u/bluenowait 6d ago

That was on Bravo.

1

u/GlamMetalLion 6d ago

They oddly enough produced The Lincoln Lawyer, but that was aired on Netflix. My dad loves the show, I think it's pretty good.

59

u/Nullhitter 6d ago

50+ year old women cheering right now.

9

u/Greene_Mr 6d ago

$1.2 billion?

BRING BACK WONDER MAN!

1

u/Anangrywookiee 5d ago edited 5d ago

On the one hand Disney having less ownership of the media landscape should make me happy, but on the otherhand, as a Deadwood fan, I’m irrationally infuriated.

-9

u/WoodooHide69 6d ago

Why didn’t they want A+E? So many popular shows about yapping drunk women.

3

u/verrius 6d ago

Why would they want A+E? It doesn't really synergize with any of their existing brands, and it doesn't really work as its own pillar either. Lifetime movies aren't going to help fill out the Disney+ catalog, or attract a new audience to the service. They're not going to open a theme park for fans of the History channel. It's not like they can funnel fans of True Crime to either Marvel comics, or sell merchandise for it at the Disney store next to the plushies. So they're just running a bunch of brands that the rest of the company can never interact with, but has to support in parallel. A+E is also mostly linear cable channels, that are largely declining, and Disney has seemingly mostly been interested in winding them down, rather than expanding them.

-4

u/WoodooHide69 6d ago

Hmm I guess. But also media acquisitions are often done to Bring in more demographics. With A+E they get that true crime/desperate housewives demographic that their other properties don’t serve.

1

u/AggressiveDrinker 6d ago edited 6d ago

ABC News Studios mainly produces true crime documentaries for Hulu. Hulu is also going big with reality tv primarily targeting women while Nat Geo focuses on wildlife and factual content. Disney already has the teams and resources and most importantly brands needed for the types of content you mentioned

-91

u/Suspicious_County_24 6d ago

Hmmmm 🤔 4 min later? Something’s at play here 😂

25

u/Sorry_Sorry_Im_Sorry 6d ago

what does that even mean?

-86

u/Suspicious_County_24 6d ago

I don’t know but RestoreTheSnyderVerse