The deal is off — for now — but just the thought of 21st Century Fox owning Time Warner set media tongues wagging this morning.
21st Century Fox’s $80 billion offer for Time Warner, first reported by the New York Times‘ Andrew Ross Sorkin, who also co-hosts CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” came in the form of a letter from Fox to the Time Warner board. “The Time Warner board of directors declined to pursue our proposal,” a Fox statement read. “We are not currently in any discussions with Time Warner.”
The cable news and business networks have been reporting on the proposed mega media merger. CNN’s Carol Costello reported the dashed deal as “breaking news.” “Time Warner, our parent company saying thanks but no thanks to a multibillion dollar takeover bid from Rupert Murdoch.”
TIME (itself recently spun off from Time Warner) reports CNN would have been spun off had the deal happened. Or, as Stuart Varney reported on FNC, the deal “would have been minus CNN because you cannot have them getting together with Fox.”
Time Warner is a top trending topic on Twitter this morning.
Our Boss Rupert Murdoch Made $80 Billion Offer for Time Warner http://t.co/29SB8iohC2 via @TIMEBusiness
— Francisco Cortes (@CortesLatino) July 16, 2014
Murdoch’s quest for yet more money and power http://t.co/7dQxHZviMO
— Nick Davies (@Bynickdavies) July 16, 2014
Inadvertently, Murdoch has helped out his rival’s shareholders, as CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla tweets:
Time Warner stock is at a 13-year high. $TWX $FOXA @CNBC
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) July 16, 2014