21st Century Fox

21st Century Fox was an multinational mass media corporation that was based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was one of the two companies formed from the 2013 spin-off of the publishing assets of News Corporation, as founded by Rupert Murdoch in 1980.

21st Century Fox was the legal successor to News Corporation dealing primarily in the film and television industries. It was the United States’ fourth-largest media conglomerate until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2019. The other company, the present-day News Corporation, holds Murdoch’s print interests and other media assets in Australia (both owned by him and his family via a family trust with 39% interest in each). Murdoch was co-executive chairman, while his sons Lachlan Murdoch and James Murdoch were co-executive chairman and CEO, respectively.

21st Century Fox’s assets included the Fox Entertainment Group—owners of the 20th Century Fox film studio (the company’s partial namesake), the Fox television network, and a majority stake in National Geographic Partners—the commercial media arm of the National Geographic Society, among other assets. It also had significant foreign operations, including the prominent Indian television channel operator Star India. The company ranked No. 109 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

On July 27, 2018, 21st Century Fox shareholders agreed to sell the majority of its assets to Disney for $71.3 billion.

The sale covered the majority of their entertainment assets, including 20th Century Fox, FX Networks, and National Geographic Partners among others. Following a bidding war with Fox, Sky Limited (a British media group which Fox held a stake in) was acquired separately by Comcast, while Fox’s FSN regional sports networks were sold to Sinclair Broadcast Group to comply with antitrust rulings. The remainder, consisting primarily of the Fox and MyNetworkTV networks, and Fox’s national Broadcasting, television stations, news and sports operations, were spun out into a new company, Fox Corporation, which began trading on March 19, 2019. Disney’s acquisition of 21CF was closed on March 20 after which the remaining 21CF’s assets were scattered across the divisions of Disney.

References

Last updated byAnonymous on March 10, 2020
2117 reads