Netflix’s leadership spins the acquisition as pro-consumer and pro-Hollywood and pushes back on antitrust concerns. ‘We didn’t buy this company to destroy’ its value, says co-CEO Ted Sarandos.
Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has ignited antitrust alarms, job-loss fears, and doomsday warnings for cinema. But the streamer’s co-CEOs insist the megadeal will be a win for consumers and Hollywood alike.
“We are very confident that regulators should and will approve it,” said Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference on Monday. “At the end of the day, it’s pro-consumer, delivers more value to those folks. It’s pro-creator, we’re going to increase content spend and deliver more.”
Peters also pushed back on antitrust concerns, citing data from research firm Nielsen that found Netflix ranked sixth for share of TV time in the US, behind YouTube, Walt Disney, NBCUniversal, Fox, and Paramount. If HBO’s content came to Netflix, it would cause the streamer’s share to only jump from 8% of view hours to 9%, he claimed. (Still, an August report from Nielsen found that Netflix ranked third as the largest TV media distributor.
