After asserting an almost-$83 billion deal to purchase most of Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday, Netflix’s high brass projected calm on Monday as Paramount Skydance lobbed a hostile bid to buy all of WBD, and traders appeared to recoil on the sheer dimension of Netflix’s personal provide.
“At this time’s transfer was fully anticipated,” Co-CEO Ted Sarandos informed traders at a UBS convention, dismissing Paramount’s bid simply hours earlier. “Now we have a deal accomplished, and we’re extremely proud of the deal. We predict it’s nice for our shareholders. It’s nice for customers. We predict it’s a good way to create and defend jobs within the leisure trade.” From Netflix’s perspective, Sarandos added, “Now we have a deal accomplished, and we’re extremely proud of the deal.”
Sarandos’s co-CEO, Greg Peters, then walked the viewers via Netflix’s three-phase plan to wring worth from Warner Bros. and HBO. If the deal goes via, he stated, Netflix would turbocharge licensing alternatives, “double down” on the HBO model, and unlock upsides from Warner Bros’ huge library of IP, which many analysts think about a “crown jewel” within the trade.
The executives’ feedback got here after traders despatched Netflix inventory tumbling down 6% within the two buying and selling periods since its Warner deal was introduced, with some analysts blasting the $82.7 billion deal as “exorbitant” and “very dangerous.” Netflix inventory is down greater than 20% during the last six months.
Peters acknowledged that Netflix is named a builder, not a purchaser—typically creating its personal mental property, reasonably than buying different firms’: “We haven’t accomplished this earlier than,” he stated. However the firm that started off lending DVDs by mail has pivoted a number of occasions to develop into the greater than $400-billion behemoth now difficult Hollywood’s order.
And it’s value noting that Netflix started streaming different firms’ content material earlier than it started producing its personal programming. Its licensing operations are nonetheless vaunted within the trade, with the well-known instance of the authorized drama Fits turning into a smash hit a number of years after it stopped airing on cable TV. As Peter put it: “Primarily, we’re continuously within the enterprise of evaluating numerous completely different licensing alternatives for titles after which attempting to determine, how can we maximize the worth of that asset on our platform?” The Warner deal will simply make official what Netflix already does, day in and time out.”
Netflix’s deal announcement on Friday rattled many in Hollywood, together with creators and their unions, and movie show homeowners, whose commerce group referred to as it an “unprecedented risk” to their enterprise.
Sarandos, the chief behind the mannequin that made “Netflix and chill” a byword for the millennial courting apply of and binging reveals and films at residence, has largely refused to launch motion pictures in theaters, besides to qualify for awards. At an occasion earlier this yr, Sarandos dismissed going to the flicks as “an outmoded thought for most individuals” and stated Netflix was “saving Hollywood” with its stream-at-home mannequin.
However on Monday he prolonged an olive department to theater homeowners, saying of theatrical releases “We didn’t purchase this firm to destroy that worth.” “What we’re going to do with that is we’re deeply dedicated to releasing these motion pictures precisely the way in which they’ve launched these motion pictures immediately,” he stated at the united statesconference. “When this deal closes, we’re in that enterprise, and we’re going to do it.”
Sarandos additionally mentioned his conversations with President Donald Trump—which Bloomberg reported over the weekend started in November.
President Trump “cares deeply about American trade, and he loves the leisure trade,” Sarandos stated. Jobs have been the president’s principal concern, in keeping with Sarandos, who reeled off statistics exhibiting that Netflix authentic productions employed 140,000 folks between 2020 and 2024, contributing $125 billion to the U.S. economic system. “We’re producing in all 50 states,” he stated. “We’ve used 500 impartial manufacturing firms to make content material for us, about roughly 1,000 authentic tasks.”
Sarandos and Peters identified that Paramount’s provide would possibly entail extra job cuts, as a result of Paramount and Warner have extra overlap of their operations than Netflix and Warner. “Within the provide that Paramount was speaking about immediately, additionally they have been speaking about $6 billion of synergies,” stated Sarandos. “The place do you suppose synergies come from? Slicing jobs. Yeah, so we’re not chopping jobs, we’re making jobs.”
Sarandos additionally mentioned HBO, the premium cable channel turned streamer—Netflix’s former rival and inspiration. Sarandos has famously stated of Netflix that “the purpose is to develop into HBO sooner than HBO can develop into us,” feedback he later modified so as to add he desires “CBS and BBC” too. Now that his firm is about to develop into HBO’s father or mother, he stated it could understand its true future because the main mild of status TV.
“They’ve been doing gymnastics to make themselves right into a common leisure model,” Sarandos stated of HBO within the HBO Max period overseen by WBD CEO David Zaslav. “Beneath this transaction, they don’t have to try this anymore.”
Each Netflix co-CEOs additionally hammered a message clearly aimed toward regulators who would possibly take anti-trust motion to halt the deal: The mixed firm would hardly dominate TV. The Netflix deal spins off CNN, TNT, Discovery, HGTV, the Meals Community and the corporate’s different cable channels, whereas the Paramount provide retains the cable belongings connected. Utilizing Nielsen viewership information that appeared to incorporate linear TV in addition to streaming, Peters stated Netflix instructions simply 8% of U.S. TV hours; including HBO would elevate that to 9%.
“We’d nonetheless be behind YouTube,” he famous. “And we’d nonetheless be behind a mixed Paramount–WBD at 14%.”
BofA Analysis’s Media & Leisure crew used a distinct metric—whole TV streaming—from Nielsen information to calculate that Warner and Netflix mixed could be about 21% of the market, whereas Paramount and Netflix could be 8%. Each would nonetheless are available behind YouTube at 28%, nonetheless.
Trump weighed in on Sunday about his relationship with Sarandos and the pending antitrust query. Saying the Netflix co-CEO is a “unbelievable particular person,” Trump added that the Warner-Netflix market share “may very well be an issue.” At any charge, Trump added, uncharacteristically for a sitting president, he could be concerned in what occurs subsequent.
Sarandos completed the united statespanel by reiterating to everybody listening and watching, a lot of whom have been long-term holders of Netflix inventory, that he was “excited” concerning the deal. (The query of whether or not Netflix would sweeten its bid for WBD wasn’t raised.)
“We predict this cope with Warner Brothers is nice for shareholders,” he stated. “We predict it’s good for customers. We predict it’s good for creators. We predict it’s nice for the leisure trade as a complete.”
[Editor’s note: one of the authors worked at Netflix from June 2024 through July 2025.]
