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Disney is everywhere, even some places you might not realize.
Ever since Disney released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as the first feature-length animated movie in 1937,
Disney has been at the top of the entertainment game.
Its hard to imagine that there’s a person in the modern times that hasn’t heard of Disney.
Today we’re going to look at just a short list of some of the most significant brands that Disney owns along with how much they paid for them.
Disney definitely has money to burn, so expect this list to get even longer in the years to come.
But without any further ado, let’s take at look now at Disney’s 15 biggest brands.
Disney record label Hollywood Records was founded in 1989,
and it has since represented a number of popular artists, including Zendaya, Miley Cyrus, Hillary Duff, Demi Lovato, and Selena Gomez.
The label is also responsible for soundtracks and compilation albums associated with Marvel movies.
One of the company’s first major moves was to purchase the distribution rights to Queen’s entire musical catalog in 1990 for 10 million dollars.
Tragically, the band’s lead singer, Freddie Mercury, died the next year.
However, Disney still generated $94 million in revenue from Queen sales in the four years following his death.
In 1930, Stephen Slesinger purchased the merchandising, television, and recording rights for the Winnie the Pooh character
and became the father of the licensing industry in the process.
He made Winnie the Pooh more of a household name.
After Slesinger passed away, his wife Shirley licensed the rights to Walt Disney Productions in exchange for 2% royalties.
Disney also arranged to license motion picture rights for the character from the widow of A.A. Milne.
The Muppets were created by Jim and Jane Henson in 1955,
and over the years they have become some of the most beloved characters in the world of entertainment.
Disney negotiated with the Henson estate for 14 years before coming to an agreement to acquire the Muppets intellectual property
for $75 million in February 2004.
They gained the majority of the Muppets film and television library with the exception of the Sesame Street characters.
Those had already been sold to Sesame Workshop.
Maker Studios is a name you might not be familiar with, but you've definitely heard of some of the personalities whose careers they have supported.
Maker Studios is primarily a production company for popular YouTube channels.
Their biggest success was PewDiePie, who has the most subscribed to channel on YouTube;
however, they ended up dropping him after he was accused of making anti-semitic comments.
Maker Studios was sold to Disney in March 2014 for a $950 million deal.
Initially, Disney had planned to sign a distribution deal with Lucasfilm in May 2011,
but during the discussions, Lucasfilm owner George Lucas told the CEO of Disney at the time, Bob Iger,
that he was planning to sell the company along with the Star Wars franchise and possibly retire.
Well, that was music to Disney’s ears.
The details were worked out, and in October 2012, Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion.
Marvel Entertainment has been around since 1998, and before that, it was known as Marvel Enterprises, and before that it was known as Toy Biz.
Marvel Entertainment is one of the most profitable acquisitions Disney ever made.
They purchased the entire company in 2009 for just $4.24 billion
a steal considering that revenues from Marvel films have surpassed $22 billion worldwide.
Through the acquisition of Marvel, Disney also owns the rights to more than 8,000 characters.
U.S.-based video streaming service Hulu was founded in October 2007 through a cooperation between News Corporation,
NBC Universal, and Providence Equity Partners.
Hulu took off after their subscription service was first launched in 2010.
When Disney acquired 21st Century Fox, they gained a 60% majority stake in Hulu.
The only other two shareholders at the time were AT&T and Comcast.
AT&T sold their 10% stake in April 2019, and Comcast has agreed to sell their stock to Disney at an unspecified date in the future,
the earliest likely being 2024.
The stake will be sold for at least $5.8 billion.
Pixar Animation Studios has given us a long list of popular films, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles.
It started out as a division of Lucasfilms before Steve Jobs helped turn it into an independent company.
When Disney bought Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion, Jobs became Disney’s largest single shareholder.
Every single one of the films developed by Pixar has earned at least an A-minus rating from CinemaScore,
and its feature films have an average gross of $680 million.
One of the earliest major acquisitions Disney made was ABC Inc.
The American Broadcasting Company has ties with Disney that date back to 1953
when they agreed to provide funding for Disneyland in exchange for one hour of Disney programming each week.
In July 1995, the Walt Disney Company announced that they would acquire ABC for $19 billion, and the merge was completed by February 1996.
ESPN Inc. was founded in 1979 as a sports broadcasting channel.
By the end of 1983, ESPN had become the largest cable channel within the U.S.
In 1984, the channel was purchased by ABC.
In 1996, when ABC was purchased by Disney, ESPN was included as part of the $19 billion deal.
A&E Networks is a family of channels that include A&E, the History Channel, Lifetime, and FYI.
Some of the popular shows this brand is responsible for include Duck Dynasty, and Project Runway.
Disney first gained a minority stake in the network when they bought ABC.
This gave them a 37.5% stake in 1996.
They gradually were able to acquire additional stake in the company.
Since July 2012, Disney and Hearst Communications have owned equal 50-50 parts in the company.
In one of the most significant deals of the company’s history, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox in July 2018 for $71 billion.
Disney had initially planned to buy the company for $52.4 billion, but then Comcast put in a bid for $65 billion.
Disney made their final offer, and Comcast dropped out of the bidding war.
The deal wasn’t completed until March 2019.
American pay television channel FX became part of the Disney family thanks to the 21st Century Fox deal Disney completed in March 2019.
Popular shows on the network include Sons of Anarchy, The Americans, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Archer.
The network was originally launched in June 1994.
It became part of 21st Century Fox in July 2013 and is now a division of Walt Disney Television.
The National Geographic Global Networks oversees a range of channels that include National Geographic,
Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo People, Nat Geo Kids, and Nat Geo Music.
This is yet another brand that Disney acquired when it took over 21st Century Fox.
Disney owns 73%, while the National Geographic Society maintains a 27% stake.
The 20th Century Fox film studio was created when the Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures merged in 1935.
It was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in 1985 before becoming a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox in 2013.
When Disney merged with 21st Century Fox in 2013 after agreeing on a $71 billion deal, the film studio became a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios.
And that wraps up our list, Aluxers.
We really only touched the surface of the Disney empire.
You can find out much more about it by watching our video of how Disney became the king of entertainment.
Just click in the upper right-hand corner to check it out.
Now that we’ve reached the end of our list, we’re curious:
Let us know in the comments.
And, of course, for sticking with us until the end, what might you be waiting for... a bonus fact of course.
Out of all the revenue streams that Disney has, it gets the most money out of its parks.
There are a total of 12 Disney-themed parks that see over 155 million guests every year.
Their parks brought in $26 billion in revenues out of their total 2019 revenues, which were close to $70 billion altogether.
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