In negotiations that have been going on for years, Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable are reportedly coming close to making a multiyear deal with the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) to supply content.
As a part of the deal with Disney, Comcast would buy their stake in E! Entertainment Television for around $1.2 billion.
For Disney, these deals are the financial foundation of the company, as 
it provides a predictable revenue stream which accounts for around half of the overall profits.
The other importance of the negotiations is that once the deals are in place with the two companies, all other deals will be built from there with the remaining companies as Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner (TWX) are the two biggest carriers.
"Comcast will get the best deal in the industry" because of its size, said industry analyst Laura Martin of Soleil/Media Metrics. "Time Warner will get the second-best deal. And everyone else will [negotiate] prices off those."
One of the reasons this has taken so long to get done is because there have been so many new technologies that resulted in changed practices; especially the use of the Internet to stream programs which are also sold to the cable carriers.
Now that these are solidly in place, the deal is close to being completed.
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