In a letter to the Trump administration’s antitrust regulators, Republican Sen. Tim Scott warned that the proposed sale of Warner Bros. Discovery to Netflix poses “significant antitrust problems” and “warrants rigorous antitrust review” before it is approved.
“Such a transaction raises the prospect of significant antitrust problems in streaming and for the movie industry more broadly,” Scott’s Friday letter to Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater reads. “The transactions warrants rigorous antitrust review under all applicable antitrust merger and monopolization laws, and to the extent appropriate, a lawsuit to block it.”
Scott also noted Netflix “already dominant” in streaming, and buying HBO’s parent company “may be the pathway to increase prices for everyday Americans, reduce choice, and obtain or entrench monopoly power.”
He additionally expressed concern that “this transaction also could raise serious concerns for a host of constituencies — moviegoers, on-camera talent, writers, producers, and everyone who loves the entertainment industry.”
“The proposed acquisition is so facially problematic that one must ask whether Netflix entered into the agreement knowing that the deal would be blocked, but it nonetheless did so with the expectation that the costs and other burdens of a years-long antitrust fight would cause Warner Bros. Discovery to wither on the vine into a severely weakened competitor,” Scott concluded.
The letter was written as bipartisan concern about the proposed deal continues to grow. Industry experts have also raised alarms about the deal, which would likely give Netflix an outsized role in Hollywood, change the way content is made and produced, and potentially devastate movie theaters around the country.
