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Sony Businesses Movies Television

Sony Is Weighing a Sale of Film, TV Business (nypost.com) 37

Sony could be exploring the sale of its film and television unit just a week after announcing the departure of Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton. From a report: Tokyo's Sony Corp. is listening to bank pitches about a potential sale of its film and TV operations, several sources told The Post. "Every bank is pushing pitches," said one person familiar with the process. Another confirmed that banks have paid a flurry of visits to Tokyo to advise on a sale of Sony's film and TV business. The Post was first to report that the Japanese owners were ready to listen to bid proposals if they had the right number attached. CBS CEO Leslie Moonves has long signaled interest in acquiring the asset, though several Chinese bidders could be in the wings. Sony CEO Kaz Hirai has denied any intent to sell the firm during the five years he's been in the top slot at the company. Still, he has not appointed a successor to Lynton, despite knowing of his intention to depart for some time. That has sparked speculation that there may be no position to fill.
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Sony Is Weighing a Sale of Film, TV Business

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  • Would be great... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...maybe then they could stop fucking up every single product with copyprotection (which soley killed the MD)...

  • Good Idea! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by methano ( 519830 ) on Friday January 20, 2017 @03:09PM (#53706339)
    Sony was once a technological wonderhaus and then they started buying content. Then the content guys started dictating the technology direction, mostly surrounding protecting their content. The result was that Sony, who invented the walkman, couldn't make a usable iPod competitor.

    They should sell Sir Paul his stuff back and go back to being tech wizards.

    And maybe Apple should look at Sony before they go down the same path.

    Full disclosure: I own stock in both.
    • by ukoda ( 537183 )
      If I had mod points I would mod this as it exactly what I think happen. Sony was always the company to buy electronic devices from if you could afford it, until they became a media company. Then they stopped caring what the customers actually wanted and later became downright hostile to their customers.

      Dumping the media section would free the electronics division to refocus on making stuff consumers really want, but I think they will never be able to recovery their lost reputation. The damage done by
    • The result was that Sony, who invented the walkman, couldn't make a usable iPod competitor.

      I sometimes thought that Sony's best competitor to the iPod in the mid 2000's was the PSP. It sure wasn't their walkman phones. A family member had the W350 It was a cheap feeling thing with a mediocre UI. Even my Razr V3xx was a better music player.

      • by swb ( 14022 )

        Their minidisc stuff wasn't bad in the late 1990s. It had some DRM limits if you recorded digitally, but I don't remember it being a pain and it was way better than cassette for general reliability and analog recording.

        I think they managed to screw this up when MP3 came along, bringing in more DRM and limitations while trying to stay relevant.

    • by sl3xd ( 111641 )

      Being tech wizards means nothing if they can't get the various pre-recorded media industries to support their tech.

      I seem to recall Sony bought what became Sony Music after the music industry's campaign against the Digital Audio Tape (DAT) [wikipedia.org] effectively killed the format for consumer use (and made it a multi-billion dollar loss for Sony).

      Stinging from the demise of BetaMax [wikipedia.org], and DAT, the execs at Sony did the math, and realized they could buy media corporations outright, fire a few of the the curmudgeons, and

  • Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised to see Disney throw their hat in the ring. They've been buying up content properties left and right, lately.

    (Not honestly sure whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing, though...)

    • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised to see Disney throw their hat in the ring. They've been buying up content properties left and right, lately.

      (Not honestly sure whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing, though...)

      They probably wouldn't mind getting the Sony licensed Marvel properties back either.

    • If they did, Disney would have Spider-Man fully in the MCU (not just some cross-promotion deal that lets them use each other's characters for now).

      • by SQLGuru ( 980662 )

        Even if they bought Sony TV/Movie and turned around and sold everything except the Marvel properties, I'd be fine with that purchase.

  • Sonyâ - how is that pronounced? SonyAY? SonyAH?

  • Even with the Marvel franchises, Sony films [the-numbers.com] heyday seems to have come and gone.

    Much like some of their other enterprises.

  • Sony Pictures reported an operating loss of $64.9 million on revenues of $3.28 billion for the six months ending in September.

    But television program production is doing OK, Sony now sees the combined movie and TV unit generating about $8 billion in revenue for the fiscal year, with an operating profit of $25 million.

  • Sony was the world tech leader until they decided to get into the movie/record biz

    Then, they were crippled by powerful people who valued fashion and power over tech

    Source.. I worked for one of Sony's awful companies..we built the Metreon

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