Reassuring news this morning reared its head on the entertainment industry’s fiscal beat, as Rupert Murdoch and 21st Century Fox employed the withdrawal method where their estimated $80 billion takeover bid of Time Warner is concerned. The really very terrible news, however, is that now you have an image of Rupert Murdoch using the withdrawal method scorched forever into the retinae of your mind’s eye. 
Deadline are reporting that early this morning the Time Warner board, who also own and operate CNN, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros., put down in words that they simply did not want to fuck with Murdoch, freezing him out and simply “refusing to engage” with his offer, despite Murdoch’s approach having “always been friendly.”
Fox’s media release then continues to praise Murdoch’s acquisition efforts for their “significant strategic merit and compelling financial rationale”, before losing me totally with talk of $6 billion Class A Common Stock share repurchase programs; it then reaches around and finishes itself off, meaning for now – at least – your favourite programming hubs like HBO and The CW can continue to operate outside of the Murdoch monopoly, continuing the grand tradition of telling important mammary-heavy stories about ethnic and LGBTQI minorities, dragons, tweens and vampires [in reverse order of programming frequency].
This seems apt.
Photo by Jason Reed via Pool/Getty Images
