Netflix announces deal to buy Warner Bros. and HBO

Oh yes, market concentration definitely improves the user experience in the long run.

Probably like Disney/Hulu

They'll try a bundle deal to see if people pay for it, then if not slowly bleed shows from one service to another.

Maybe eventually combine them but they'll try to keep paying for both as long as possible

¿Porque no los dos?

I expect it'll be an extra charge, like with HBO

When Discovery merged with WB/HBOMAX most (all?) of the Discovery content (previously only on the Discovery+ paid streaming service) showed up on HBOMAX. So perhaps it will mean something similar here that it will mean getting more for less like it did then.

Larry Ellison also wants Warner Discovery. He's kissed the ring so much that Trump has to wash the slobber off.

So we'll see. Larry Ellison is the worst option here, even worse than media consolidation and price hikes, because Ellison wants to be the new Rupert Murdoch.

This means the would-be buyer will pay WBD billions of dollars if the deal is not completed.

There was a super interesting Money Stuff (Pay Now, Merge Later) recently about this kind of acquisition structure that allows the seller to keep the money even if the deal gets blown up by antitrust. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Would you rather Larry Ellison own it? Because that was the front runner for the longest time.

I think it's actually worse.

I don't see how this doesn't lead to the removal of the HBO brand from the marketplace, and the transfer of all IP, to Netflix's algorithm driven slop machine.

Both were shitty options, this is all speculation, but something tells me that at least HBO would have survived a Comcast or Paramount acquisition, and not been converted into whatever the hell you want to call Netflix's category of entertainment.

I only hope is that this is killed by regulators, and somehow Paramount and Comcast aren't able to put together new bids.

But, I don't think that's what's going to happen.

In terms of management of what content gets made? Yeah, probably about the same. A lot better than ellison where you can bet that stuff like The Pitt would have been instantly halted until they added enough scenes where the guy who beat up a nurse is shown to be the real hero and the southeast asian doctors all get deported before the shift ends.

But the zazlovian "if we cancel this we get more money than if we show it" nonsense will likely accelerate.

In terms of media quality? The best "joke" I have seen is that the new season of White Lotus is going to just be filmed on a green screen set. And... yeah. There are genuine arguments for and against that. Massively inflated budgets that more or less pay for vacations for the production team (Adam Sandler has entered the chat) are definitely bad. But there is a lot to be said about the kind of beautiful lighting and "energy" that comes from an on set. BUT you can also look at stuff like fucking How I Met Your Father that are kind of universally praised for using green screens to get iconic moments like conversations on bridges in NYC. I'll always prefer on location-ish filming but I totally get that that may be something that is a net negative these days.

The bigger problem on the Netflix side is what this means for theatres (and... I kind of honestly lean on the side of "fuck 'em" but understand they serve a purpose) and the price of streaming services in general. The best case scenario is increasingly looking like Netflix effectively becoming Cable where you have a base package and then pick what networks/studios you want on top of that. Which, to be fair, is what we already see with Disney and ESPN on Hulu or whatever. But... prices are going up regardless.

Also, it is still a bit murky as to exactly what is and isn't in this deal. My understanding is that WBD studios and productions are but the network channels aren't. So ellison is still likely to own CNN by 2027. But Netflix will likely be John Oliver's new Business Daddy (although I increasingly suspect LWT is planning to go independent).

And... as a wrestling sicko, things look real bleak. TNT/TBS will likely go to ellison. But AEW's streaming contract (not sure if it expires in that timeframe) is potentially going to be owned by Netflix who already do streaming for wwe/ufc. And... pretty sure the super horny super gay wrestling show where the World Men's Champion gets out and cuts a promo in high school Spanish while the coolest male tag team come out in "abolish ICE" clothing are going to get killed in favor of the promotion putting pyramid power on their turnbuckles and constantly making sure no black man can ever be successful under HH Helmseley.

It is REAL fucked that fucking Comcast was probably the best outcome for all this...

Reminds me of the time AOL bought Time-Warner...

Dude. Market cap WBD $61b, NFLX $437b.

Remember when AOL bought Time-Warner?

Pepperidge Farm do.

Netflix has a market cap (valuation) of $421 billion, warner discovery is $64 billion now, but it was only ~$30 billion a couple months ago before rumours of a buyout started happening.

They both have the same revenue of $39 billion but Netflix runs at a $10 billion profit while warner runs at a $10 billion loss. That's why they're able to buy it, with warner the business is bad and they're burning money and need cash to keep them going but they're sitting on a gold mine of IP that would be valuable to another studio that's willing to cover their losses until they can turn things around.

It's more profitable to make low budget reality tv slop then risky high budget stuff that may not find an audience.

Debt! A massive amount of debt offloaded on to consumers with price hikes!

Best outcome would be after the deal is final people stop using Netflix.

*Sad Larry Ellison noises*

I personally wanted Comcast to get it, only for the IP rights to be useful for their theme park division.

Enough buyouts and the parent can have creative acronyms.

Warner Bros-Seven Arts-Kinney-Time-AOL-AT&T-Discovery-Netflix

Stop stealing jokes from Parks and Rec

That's an interesting thought. Are mergers usually bad overall? Would it be better for the assets and workers to just be lost? I do think monopolies are bad simply because of the domination of control and the loss of competition, but if X and Y are two of many companies and Y is failing, why is it bad for X to save some of the parts of Y to incorporate it into their own? Maybe there should be limitations and regulations on how much can be done and to what?

I don't even know the right questions to ask, I just thought the idea was interesting in its absoluteness, and wondered if it might be too simple to say no merging or buying at all.

There goes my hope of hbo ever doing anything good anymore.

It becomes the sister company to… Millarworld

ActivisionBlizzard wasn't so much of a threat to ComcastNBCUniversal as NetflixWarnerDiscoveryHBO would be.