New York: Netflix is walking away from its offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business, in a stunning move that effectively puts Paramount in a position to take over its storied Hollywood rival.
On Thursday, Warner’s board announced that Skydance-owned Paramount’s latest offer to buy the entire company for USD 31 per share was superior to the agreement it had previously struck with Netflix.
Warner gave Netflix four business days to come up with a counteroffer – but Netflix instead responded less than two hours later, declining to raise its proposal. It said the new price it would have to pay made the deal “no longer financially attractive”.
“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.’ iconic brands,” Netflix’s co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said in a joint statement. “But this transaction was always a nice to have’ at the right price, not a must have’ at any price.”
A Paramount buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery would reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape. And unlike Netflix – which was only eyeing Warner’s studio and streaming business – Paramount wants the entire company. That means HBO Max, cult-favourite titles like “Harry Potter” and even CNN could soon find themselves under the same roof as Paramount’s CBS, “Top Gun” and the Paramount+ streaming service.
The prospect of such a combination, which will still need the green light from both Warner shareholders and regulators, poses both antitrust concerns and questions of political influence.
Netflix’s decision to walk away on Thursday marks the latest development in a monthslong, messy corporate battle over Warner’s future. Sarandos and Peters thanked Warner’s leadership despite the final outcome.
Warner had repeatedly backed the deal it struck with Netflix since December right up until Thursday evening, when its board continued to recommend Netflix even while calling Paramount’s bid valued at about USD 111 billion including debt “superior”.
Netflix had previously put a USD 27.75 per share offer on the table for Warner’s studio and streaming business, totaling nearly USD 83 billion including debt.
In a statement Thursday night, CEO David Zaslav said Netflix executives had been “extraordinary partners” and that he wished them “well in the future”.
After months of a heated back and forth amid Paramount’s hostile campaign to take over Warner without the board’s blessing, Warner also changed its tune about the remaining prospective buyer.
Warner’s board hasn’t officially adopted Paramount’s merger agreement yet, but once it does, Zaslav said it “will create tremendous value”. He added that the company was “excited about the potential of a combined Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery”.
Paramount did not immediately respond to requests for further comment. But CEO David Ellison earlier applauded Warner’s board affirming “the superior value of our offer.”
A Paramount-Warner combo would combine two of Hollywood’s five legacy studios that remain today, in addition to their theatrical channels.
Beyond “Harry Potter”, Warner movies like “Superman”, “Barbie” and “One Battle After Another” – as well as hit TV series like “The White Lotus” and “Succession” – would join Paramount’s content library.
Paramount’s lineup of titles include “Top Gun”, “Titanic” and “The Godfather”. And beyond CBS, it owns networks like MTV and Nickelodeon, as well as the Paramount+ streaming service.
A merger between the two companies would put CNN under the same roof as CBS, which has already seen significant editorial shifts under new Skydance ownership.
Paramount took steps to appeal to more conservative viewers in its news operations, notably with the installation of Free Press founder Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. And if the company’s takeover bid of Warner is successful, critics warn similar shifts could happen CNN, a network that has long attracted ire from Trump.
“Any concerns about Netflix owning Warner Bros. are only heightened by the prospect of Paramount owning all of WBD. But it might not even matter,” Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at Forrester, a market research company, said in an email. “Politics are playing an outsized role in this deal, and they’ve been on Paramount’s side from the get-go.”
President Donald Trump has a close relationship with the billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount’s CEO David Ellison who is heavily backing Paramount’s bid to buy Warner.
And Paramount’s aggressive push to acquire Warner arrived just months after Skydance closed its own buyout of Paramount in a contentious merger approved just weeks after the company agreed to pay the president USD 16 million to settle a lawsuit over editing at Paramount’s “60 Minutes” program on CBS.
Still, Trump has continued to publicly lash out at Paramount over editorial decisions at CBS’ “60 Minutes”. And while the president previously made unprecedented suggestions about his involvement in seeing a Warner deal through, he’s since walked back those statements and maintained that regulatory approval will be up to the Justice Department.
Still, top Democratic lawmakers have sounded the alarm about the Republican president’s ties to companies like Paramount and potential consequences of growing corporate power.
“A handful of Trump-aligned billionaires are trying to seize control of what you watch and charge you whatever price they want,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a longtime antitrust hawk, said in a statement Thursday night. She also called a potential Paramount-Warner combo an “antitrust disaster.
AP