It is not only possible, but likely, that Time Warner, once the world’s largest media company, and 21st Century Fox, once the most aggressive and feared, will soon disappear from Earth. They will disappear into larger entities and become … scale.
That is, more. Bankers, investors and analysts say “scale” — “You’ve got to achieve scale,” “Now is the time to gain scale” or, more threateningly, “How are you going to get to scale?” — as though it were a scientific idea. But then sometimes they merely say, scientifically, “You need to bulk up.” The premium is on massiveness. The size is the strategy.
The known media world, now consisting of Walt Disney Co., Fox, Time Warner, Comcast, CBS, Viacom, Sony and Discovery, is reduced, in current projections, to Disney,…
