For so many years, folks complained that it was the Walt Disney Company that unselectively was homogenizing the cultural space of the world. It turns out that Disney is a shrinking violet and that the new corporate love is going to be Comcast. If they purchase Disney, that means that the one company would have a market capitalization of about $125 billion. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Back in 1980 or so, Comcast started rolling out cable television in our neighborhood in suburban Philadelphia. I loved watching Triumph and Billy Squier stroke their instruments every hour on the half hour on MTV. Little did anyone know that Comcast, the pipsqueak delivery boy of Buggles videos, would come to outlive and outlove big, heartless Disney.
Disney is suffering because Michael Eisner and his buddies are all greed-heads. The loss of their Pixar contract pretty much writ the words on the walls – they insisted on chiseling Steve Jobs and Pixar out of all sorts of money AND laying off a significant portion of their animation staff, yet they still want to play to those parental $$$s.
On the flip-side, there’s an entire boardroom contingent that doesn’t like the way Eisner is running the ship either – Walt’s nephew and some others have resigned in protest and have put up a site somewhere – I believe it’s SaveDisney.com or somesuch.
At least Comcast takes a larger view of what sells and what doesn’t sell – current Mouse-management seems to put greed and Prozac-induction before all their other decisions. Let’s hope this works out in Comcast’s favor – the world doesn’t need *any more* stupid Family-based sitcoms on network television.