Landmark Deals: Disney Buys Pixar; UPN and the WB Merge

(andPOP) - Two landmark deals in the world of movies and television were announced today.

Reuters reports that the Walt Disney Co. is buying Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion.

That means Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, is now one of Disney's largest shareholders.

Pixar execs will oversee Disney's animation unit along with their own operations after the companies are combined - so Pixar gains creative control over the world's most famous cartoon studio. Pixar will continue to work out of northern California.

"The addition of Pixar significantly enhances Disney animation, which is a critical creative engine for driving growth across our businesses," Disney CEO Robert Iger said in a statement.

The agreement, which is expected to close this summer, also comes with a seat on Disney's board for Jobs.
The two companies have been partners for more than a decade. Disney has distributed all of Pixar's six blockbuster films, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles.

Meanwhile, the landscape of American television has also been changed by another deal, this one more out of the blue. Struggling TV networks WB and UPN announced that they will merge into a single new youth-oriented broadcaster.

The new CW network will debut this fall as a joint venture of CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc., shrinking the field of major U.S. commercial TV networks to five.

Execs said CW would be run more cost-efficiently. However, they did not address how many layoffs would result.

UPN and the WB, both launched in 1995, have struggled in the ratings when compared with the Big Four broadcasters (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox).