Disney Completes Purchase of Fox Kids

By Richard Verrier

Oct. 25, 2001 12 AM PT

Walt Disney Co. completed its acquisition of Fox Kids Worldwide on Wednesday after News Corp. agreed to lower the purchase price by about $100 million.

News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting Co. and cartoon entrepreneur Haim Saban sold Fox Family World Wide for $2.9 billion in cash and the assumption of $2.3 billion in Fox Family debt. When the deal was announced in July, Disney was to pay $3 billion in cash and assume $2.3 billion in Fox Family debt.

Disney will take charge of Fox Kids’ channels worldwide, including the flagship Fox Family channel in the U.S., which has 81 million subscribers. Disney will rename the channel ABC Family and use it as a secondary outlet for network programming.

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Entertainment & Arts

Richard Verrier

Richard Verrier is investigations editor for Arts and Entertainment at the Los Angeles Times. He has been with The Times since 2001 and has run our Company Town since 2016. After stints at the St. Petersburg Times and the Orlando Sentinel in Florida, Verrier joined the paper as a reporter, and for many years covered all aspects of the entertainment industry before turning to editing. He oversees the Company Town coverage while working to guide and edit investigative and enterprise reporting across the entertainment team, collaborating with writers and editors from all departments. He is a native of Montreal and a graduate from the University of Toronto and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Disney Completes Purchase of Fox Kids

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