Company Town: Disney’s Mega-Merger : VOICES : What Hollywood’s Movers and Shakers Were Saying

ROBERT DALY

Co-chairman of Warner Bros.

“This is very good for both companies. Disney has great assets and ABC is the premiere broadcaster with great cable holdings and great TV stations.” Daly, like everyone else in town, said that while he was totally shocked to hear about the deal this morning, “none of this surprises me because more and more media mergers are continuing to happen.” Daly, who said he fought for 10 years to keep the networks from owning the programs they air, said Monday, “I knew when they went down [the financial syndication rules], there’d be mergers of this type. It makes it tougher, more competitive.”

JEFF CHESTER

Executive director of the Center for Media Education , a Washington public interest group

“This is the first of a series of major media mergers that show the dangers of deregulation. If legislation goes through, the Disney Cap Cities Tritalco combine will be able to swallow up cable operators and become monopoly providers in towns across the country. The bill fails by not having safeguards against developments like these.”

JEFF SAGANSKY

Executive vice president of Sony America

“This is a fantastic situation. For however number of years the networks have been in business, they’ve always been the biggest mass market consumer products advertiser in the country, never has a network gone into the consumer production business and now they will be. There are incredible opportunities for cross-promotion on both ends. It’s going to be a home run and help grow the franchises.”

JERRY KATZMAN

President of the William Morris Agency

“I think it’s a brilliant deal for the two of them. It will obviously help both companies: It gives Disney distribution and ABC production. It’s an absolute fit and long overdue in the Disney sense. They were the logical one to go for a network because they have a foreign setup and the product but they didn’t have the stations.”

DAVID GEFFEN

Record mogul and DreamWorks co-owner

“I can’t think of one bad thing about this deal and the good things that could spring from it are simply too amazing to describe in a space as small as this. It’s an extraordinary arrangement for the shareholders of both companies and will create what will certainly be the premiere media company of the world.”

MICHAEL EISNER

Chairman of Walt Disney Co.

In answer to a question regarding why no investment bankers were involved in the deal, Eisner said:

“These two companies know each other. . . . If you buy a house from your cousin, you don’t need a real estate agent.”

JOE ROTH

Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group chairman

“This is a fantastic merger of two extremely well run and profitable companies who are both in the entertainment business who do very different things. The opportunities and benefits for overlapping are enormous. These are two very sympathetic companies. We have Miramax, they have the Arts & Entertainment cable channel; Disney is involved in sports, they own ESPN. On the movie side, whether it’s live action or animation, we create specials and shows to promote our movies--like we did recently with ‘Pocahontas’--which run on ABC. This is really a great move for Disney and for Michael, who gets to take the company to the next level.”

WARREN BUFFETT

Largest shareholder of Capital Cities/ABC

“I do not have blanket enthusiasm for all mergers. In fact, I think a lot of them don’t make any sense. But I think this deal makes more sense than any deal I’ve ever seen with the possible exception of Capital Cities and ABC to start with.”

JONATHAN DOLGEN

Chairman and CEO of Viacom Entertainment Group

“It looks like an excellent transactional deal for both. You’ve got to give kudos to each side. They put together a good group of assets. . . . The level of poker has just gone up if you want to play in this business. The more this [kind of merger] goes on, the more unique these assets become.”

RONALD PERELMAN

Chairman of Mac Andrews & Forbes Holdings, parent of New World Communications Group

“It’s a brilliant deal.”

ROBERT SAM ANSON

Editor of Los Angeles magazine and longtime critic of Michael Eisner

“I think it’s a genius stroke, a bold gusty strategically brilliant move on the part of both companies. The thing that really blew me away about it was how a deal of this magnitude could be kept secret. That alone was a truly amazing feat.”

MICHAEL OVITZ

Chairman of Creative Artists Agency and longtime friend of Eisner’s.

“These are two very strong companies with very complimentary asset bases. They are both well-run companies and they really are a good fit.”

JEFFREY KATZENBERG

DreamWorks partner and former chairman of Disney Studios

“Michael Eisner wished upon a star, and he got the whole star. And what he got is the most prestigious, powerful, important media enterprise in the world. This is his wish come true. Michael was modest when he said this morning [at the press conference] that ‘one plus one equals four.’ One plus one equals the whole enchilada.”

THOMAS S. MURPHY

Chairman of Capital Cities

“I plan to put my entire investment in Capital Cities/ABC, if at all possible, into Disney stock. We wouldn’t have made the deal unless we had a ticket on the horse race. . . . It wasn’t vital for [Eisner] to do [the deal]. It wasn’t vital for me to do it. I always thought the combination was perfect. I’m a very competitive person, as Michael certainly is. The idea of him ended up on CBS just killed me.”

--Compiled by Claudia Eller, Jane Hall and Sallie Hofmeister.