Disney CEO Bob Iger has a lot on his plate these days. Since returning to the job he had left behind just two years ago for his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek, he’s weathered a downturn in his flagship Marvel and Lucasfilm divisions, massive losses from the Disney+ streaming initiative, and a historic double strike in Hollywood shutting down production. And that’s before you get to old-school linear television, where he just suffered through a bruising negotiation with Charter Communications and saw the unthinkable happen: a blackout for tens of millions of customers of ABC and ESPN (the deal wrapped up just in time for the inaugural Monday Night Football broadcast).
In recent months, he’s mused aloud to CNBC in July that linear TV “may not be core” to the company’s future. Now another shoe may be dropping, as Bloomberg reports that Iger has fielded a $10 billion offer for ABC, one of the traditional “Big Three” networks, and the bidder is none other than Byron Allen, one of America’s most prominent Black businessmen and a bona fide media mogul. It’s early in any potential sale process, but Allen’s ownership of ABC would cap a remarkable career of media M&A.
