A few years ago, I was honored by the International Radio and Television Society. Among the co-chairs for the event were: Dan Burke, of ABC; Larry Tisch, of CBS; Bob Wright, of NBC; and Ted Turner. In accepting my award, I acknowledged their presence and said:

Quote:I suddenly know what it was like to be Gary Moore hosting the old game show, "To Tell The Truth." "One of these four men is interested in selling his television network to The Walt Disney Company. Will he please now stand up?"

Everyone laughed, but no one stood up until last summer.

And now we know ...

I have always felt that if we made a large acquisition, it would have to be in a field related to ... and complementary with ... our primary entertainment business. Our list of potential candidates was always short. To emphasize the importance I placed on knowing we could manage the acquired company, I joked with our strategic planning group that any company I had not personally worked at before joining Disney could not be on our list.

It happens that I worked at ABC from 1966 to 1976. During my tenure, I sat in every program office on the 37th floor at ABC headquarters here in New York. I watched Leonard Goldenson build the company while I was running around involved in specials, soap operas and game shows, children's programs, television movies, mini-series and, of course, prime time programming. I watched Roone Arledge create modern television sports coverage and later, the pre-eminent news division in the television. I began at ABC two years after the arrival of Peter Jennings. I watched ABC go from an also-ran network, a network that was called fourth of three, to first place in every area in which it operated. When I was at Paramount following my years at the network, we placed five of the top ten shows on ABC. Within three years of our arrival at Disney, our best and most profitable television relationship was with ABC.

Walt Disney felt about ABC the same way I do. ABC helped finance Disneyland's construction in the early 50's and when Disneyland opened in 1955, it was ABC's cameras that recorded the event in the first live television special.Walt brought the ABC Network to Hollywood with his revolutionary showcase series, first known as Disneyland, which evolved into Walt Disney Presents ...

and later, The Wonderful World of Disney -- which as Michael Ovitz just told you, is returning to ABC next fall. In 1986, Capital Cities, with the help of Warren Buffet, acquired ABC and brought the company to new heights. Tom Murphy and Dan Burke operated ABC to perfection. For the past decade, ABC has been run as the premier broadcast entity in the world.

In my opinion, we are acquiring one of the world's great media companies which is a perfect fit culturally, financially and operationally, with global brands and outstanding management.

I have just received word that the shareholders of Cap Cities/ABC have approved our acquisition, which means everything seems in place for a successful corporate marriage when we receive the necessary governmental approvals. When the arrangement finally happens, it will be done quickly and happily. This is not just a first, second or even third date. The family of the bride and groom have known each other for years.

But with all of our talk here today about the future, let us not forget that it is the huge success and growth of The Walt Disney Company that has brought us to this place. While that success and growth will continue and be enhanced by the broadcasting know-how of our new partner, let us look for a minute at our core Walt Disney Company business and show you what we've been doing to keep Disney growing at a healthy pace. Let's start with one of our biggest assets, Walt Disney World.

In 1971, when the Magic Kingdom opened, Walt Disney World consisted of one theme park and two hotels with 19 hundred rooms. Today, there are 11 hotels and 12,400 rooms, three very large water parks, a night-time entertainment island and three gated theme parks.

We recently announced plans to even further expand the entertainment offerings at Walt Disney World.

Possibly the most daring and exciting upcoming project is Disney's Animal Kingdom. It is set to open in 1998 and will be five times the size of the Magic Kingdom. The centerpiece of the park, the Tree of Life, will rise 14 stories high with a trunk 50 feet wide. Many other projects are afoot at Walt Disney World.

Opening next month is the Disney Institute, where adults and families with older children can go to participate in more than 80 highly-stimulating learning experiences -- from culinary arts to film animation to photography to genealogy to radio and TV production.

With over 500,000 square feet of convention space on property, Walt Disney World has long been a Mecca for convention business. With that in mind, the upcoming two- thousand-room, moderatly-priced Coronado Springs Resort will add another 95 thousand square feet of meeting space and open up a new niche for us in that business.

And due to the success of so many of our resort, entertainment and retail offerings, we will combine the best concepts in the upcoming BoardWalk Inn, another 900 rooms opening this year. And, like Pleasure Island, the BoardWalk Inn will serve as another prime spot for entertainment and nightlife.

This year we will celebrate Walt Disney World's 25th anniversary, and we will also take another step toward fully realizing Walt's original vision for the property. He saw it as a community where "people live a kind of life they can't find anywhere else in the world." On that note, one of our most ambitious projects to come will be an entire city called Celebration.

Celebration is being built on 5,000 acres of Walt Disney World property south of the theme parks and will eventually be home to 20,000 people. In addition to homes designed by world-class architects it will feature a state-of-the-art "public school of the future," a modern medical facility, and homes wired for fiber-optic communication with the outside world.

As you may know, we are stepping up our involvement in the world of sports. In Florida, we will debut our very own "playing field of dreams": a 200-acre campus featuring state-of-the-art athletic facilities which will become national home to the Amateur Athletic Union. This alliance will bring thousands more guests to our parks and hotels.

There is more ...

Before the decade is over, the Walt Disney World vacation experience will enter a new dimension: the Disney Cruise Lines. Our first ship will set sail from Port Canaveral in January 1998, with another scheduled to start operations that November. By combining a cruise experience with a trip to Walt Disney World, we feel we will be offering our guests the best of all worlds while further increasing attendance at our parks and occupancy of our hotels.

All these projects represent ways in which new businesses at Disney will continue growing out of existing businesses. At Disneyland, where we are limited by the size of our property, growth initiatives will be more constrained. We will, continue to add new attractions such as the Indiana Jones Adventure Ride which debuted last February. The next project on the docket is a modernization of Tomorrowland.

And, as our ownership of the Mighty Ducks prove, we are committed to growth in the Anaheim area, so don't be surprised if we announce another theme park there, too.

As for our foreign parks, we're about ready to go forward with our partner, The Oriental Land Company, with a second theme park adjacent to Tokyo Disneyland. At Disneyland Paris, the positive effects of the park's financial restructuring have taken hold, and we're seeing the highest attendance figures and hotel occupancy thus far in the park's short history. They even turned a small profit in their latest fiscal year.

I know this might sound like an agenda for an entire company, but at Disney, we have two OTHER divisions conjuring up new business as well. . . .

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