Disney confirmed its potential acquisition with Twitter soon. Up to this moment, Disney is currently in progress of communicating with bankers whether they would close an agreement to buy one of the most popular social media sites in the world.
Disney already owns other media properties like ESPN and ABC. The reason why they are aiming for a social media platform are to support and extend their reach globally. While Twitter is also connected with some of its partners like NFL, it would be an advantage for Disney to acquire it for a successful new media platform.
With the decline in cable viewership, Disney is looking for new platforms to expand the reach of their leading brands. Since 2013, ESPN has lost 9 million subscribers, according to Nielsen data.
As reported by TechCrunch, some reports have suggested that Twitter could still fetch $30 billion. But Disney hopes for the price tag to be much lower as possible. Twitter's stocks are currently trending upward while Disney's moving toward the opposite direction.
Just recently, Twitter's market cap was below $13 billion before rumors of a possible Salesforce acquisition broke. The latest market cap of Twitter now reached $20 billion.
According to Chicago Tribune, early this year, Disney made a significant investment to enhance its video distribution capabilities. In August, the company said it would pay $1 billion for a 33 percent stake in BAMtech, a video streaming company created by Major League Baseball. This BAMtech has been tapped by Disney to build and distribute a new ESPN-branded, multi-sport subscription streaming service that will be sold directly to consumers.
"We are a big believer in using technology to reach more people, Walt Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said in an interview. He also added that Disney is extremely impressed with the BAMtech's technology.
"I thought Twitter did an excellent job last week-interestingly enough that platform was powered by BAMtech last week, and will be moving forward, which I think says a lot about that platform," Iger said.
"Because it was very stable. I checked it out, just as a lot of people did. And I thought it was a quite good experience. They did a good job."
Whether or not Disney could win the bidding for Twitter is something that fans should wait for.
