John Malone weighed in on the hungry bidders that are eyeing Warner Bros. Discovery.
The studio’s chair emeritus and largest voting shareholder discussed the sale on David Faber’s CNBC series “Squawk on the Street” on Thursday, prefacing his analysis by comparing the competitor’s pursuit to an Aesop’s fable.
“This is like an Aesop’s fable, ‘The Blind Man and the Elephant,’” Malone said. “We have three or four aggressive bidders. They each are seeing a different elephant because of where they come from and why this asset would be important to them in their future and the future of their companies. So, that really makes it very interesting.”
First, he shared his stance on Larry Ellison’s support for his son David Ellison’s bid. The younger Ellison is the chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance.
“Larry Ellison sees this as a global technology platform play that could really use AI to dramatically change the whole ballgame in the social networking and streaming,” Malone explained.
In regards to the mega streamer Netflix, Malone says executive chairman Reed Hastings likely sees WBD as way to boost their library.
He noted: “The Netflix guys just see it as a great way to have the best library and the best production studio and in movies and television.”
Faber pitched in with thoughts, saying buying Warner Bros. would be “disruptive” for Netflix, but noted that Hastings is “willing to disrupt his own business.”
Malone added that a Netflix purchase also wouldn’t shake up Hollywood as much.
“I think they would add rather than take away. So, in many ways, a Netflix deal would be much less disruptive to Hollywood,” Malone shared. “You’d have essentially more activity than less. You put it together with another studio. You’re going to try and find synergies. You’re going to have perhaps compression of activity. So, politically, you could look at it a lot of different ways.”
Warner Bros. Discovery revealed they were interested in selling last month, and as TheWrap previously reported, whoever buys the longstanding studio will likely impact the entertainment industry — raising questions of what’s to come for theaters and labor. Whatever deal materializes will also have to go through regulatory scrutiny and, of course, deal with the Trump factor.
Thus far, WBD has rejected three separate takeover offers from Paramount for being too low. Meanwhile, Netflix and Comcast have suggested they’re interested in the company’s studio and streaming assets, which are set to split from the linear networks business in April. The former has reportedly hired the investment bank Moelis and is reviewing WBD’s financials.
