Whether Warner Bros. sells to Ted Sarandos’ Netflix or David Ellison’s Paramount remains to be seen — but Sarandos is adamant that a merger is coming no matter what.
The Netflix co-CEO acknowledged in an interview Wednesday that many in Hollywood “just hope that there’s not a deal at all” — which he dismissed as “some fantasy happening.”
The “fantasy” Sarandos mentioned is a prevalent one. Voices throughout Hollywood and beyond have raised opposition to the pending Warner Bros. sale, fearing that further consolidation would be bad for film, television and media regardless of whose hands the legacy studio lands in. “The Town” host Matt Belloni told Sarandos he’s heard a lot of peers around the industry hoping that no merger goes through.
“The sentiment about that around Hollywood is rampant,” Belloni asserted in Wednesday’s podcast episode. “When people ask me, ‘Which one do you prefer?’ I do tell them I think neither is great here. You either have one company becoming by far the dominant player, arguably game over for the subscription streaming business, and then the other company is going to combine two legacy studios and lay off thousands and thousands of people.”
“Well, you’re right with the second half of that statement,” Sarandos replied.
“Am I not right about the first also?” Belloni asked.
Things got a bit heated from there, with the Netflix CEO and entertainment journalist debating how competitive the entertainment ecosystem currently is. Part of the disagreement stemmed from whether YouTube should be considered part of the streaming wars — as Sarandos has long argued it should — after its acquisition of streaming rights for the NFL and the Academy Awards.
Sarandos noted that Netflix lost the battle for the rights to stream both the Oscars and the 2025 NFL regular-season opener in Brazil to YouTube, highlighting the company’s competition.
“Those are the first steps,” Sarandos posited of YouTube future studio aspirations. “That’s not the exceptions.”
“OK, but if you are a creator, and you have a show or a movie, you are not taking it to YouTube,” Belloni responded. “You’re going to combine the No. 1 and No. 4 subscription streamers. That’s over 400 million subscribers. With the next biggest being about half as big, doesn’t that arguably kill competition?”
“How is it that we lose projects all the time in the marketplace?” Sarandos asked. “Remember, when I talk about a diverse marketplace, I’m talking about people can choose very freely between linear TV (which still is about 40% of TV engagement) and a sea of other entertainment choices.”
Listen to Sarandos’ full episode of “The Town” here.
