The politics is very important here whether you like it or not - Paramount, owned by Trump supporters who’ve already bought and neutered CBS News and killed off Colbert’s show, will now get their hands on CNN and be able to kill John Oliver’s show.
Between political attacks on Disney in Florida and in general which has started to make it retreat, and these moves, the left and centre will be pushed further and further out of news and media, leaving the right with all the coverage they want of their side.
In the UK we’ve already seen this - all but one small newspaper and the Guardian are heavily right wing, and pushing hard for us to join the war in Iran and have succeeded in pushing us towards national acts of self harm like Brexit. They’re also targeting the BBC and Channel 4 that provide public service journalism, just like PBS was hit in the USA.
Competition is definitely an important point, but consolidation cheered on by politicians is much worse - Trump actively spoke about blocking the Netflix bid and pushing that of his friend, who having bought CBS was rewarded with TikTok’s US operations - it’s pure corruption
Then I think any argumentation on Paramount buying them is null and void since I could point to YouTube or any social media video like tiktok or Instagram reels could be counted as compitition
Once again I am not touching the political discussion, no matter which party bought them someone would be upset, I wouldn’t call either Paramount or Netflix moral companies exactly though but a smaller evil competing feels like a lesser evil than securing a bigger evils dominance but it would be corrupt for the govement to say I don’t like company X so we are going to block it
Because it would allow a 3rd comparably sized competitor to compete rather than see the number 1 streamer to absorb the number 3 streamer. It seems a lot better for compotition to me, the only thing that would be bad is potential Paramount owning CNN, I think they should be forced to spin that off into a seprate company but I don’t think it will happen
Cable is a dying market though and if Netflix bought Warner Brothers Cinema would 100% die, they would make temporary agreements but the moment the contract terms ended Netflix would revert back to their current strategy, so it is either a less competitive cinema market or a dead one. Granted this is all speculation at the end of the day but if it was something Netflix wanted to do we will see it happen now regardless of the deal not happening
Well shareholders won’t say to a massive premium, the FTC and EU i don’t see being much of an issue, I could see the EU forcing some minor divestigures though. I think the CMA is the question mark
Ok but supporting a political candidate or cancelling shows isn’t a reason to block a merger, it would like like if the Xbox ABK merger was blocked because microsoft closed zenimax studios. You can say you don’t like Paramount because of that but it shouldn’t be blocked…though I think CNN should be forced to spin off into a seprate company personally to get this acquisition though the closing line though I doubt it will happen
Can I have that quote. Because all I remember is him saying that he would be involved which i interpreted as his administration would be involved which…no shit, the FTC would be involved and that it needs a serious look which are standard statements, and if that was a massive risk i feel like Warner Bros or Netflix would of mentioned it when Netflix walked away
This is him saying he’ll get personally involved - which is not his job, it’s the FTC’s:
While here he threatens Netflix if they don’t remove the Democrat Susan Rice from their board:
Funnily enough, no threats to Paramount despite the clear and obvious issue of CBS News and CNN being owned by the same company - he’s even said of the deal that CNN must be sold (which wouldn’t happen in the Netflix version of the deal potentially, it may have just been spun off without a buyer):
I interpreted this to mean his administration would be involved which would include the FTC/ DOJ but who knows what Trump actually meant by this, regardless saying it could be a problem feels like a normie statement, it could course a problem and regardless of Netflix or Paramount buying them it should be investigated seriously
Yeah but if this actually added risk to the deal don’t you think it would of been mentioned when Netflix walked away from the deal, escpecially considering Netflixs CEO went to the white house the day Paramount submitted their final and best offer, they could of used it as an excuse but instead they just said it didn’t make financial sense which tells me it more than likely had little to no affect on the deal
Yeah I will admit this could cause bias, I am of the opinion that CNN should be spun off to get the Paramount deal done but I am not going to sit here and pretend I care about CNN, their just another dying new network but I don’t think Paramount should be allowed to have both CBS and CNN, ideally every company should only be limited to 1 major news network due to the political power it can infer
I don’t know why you’re solely fixated on streaming for the competition argument. What you’re trying to explain is why Paramount would (in theory) be healthier for competition, and I don’t see how any explanation of that works while completely ignoring Paramount and WB’s other business markets.
Shareholders 100% have a say and they will, in theory (theory as in a world where the majority shareholders aren’t a handful of people with their own agendas) care greatly when the company they are investing in takes their money and makes a MASSIVE purchase. WBDiscovery shareholders will take whatever payout they get especially when they are getting more money than their shares are actually valued. Paramount shareholders are the ones who are seeing the company they technically own spend a lot of money. If Paramount doesn’t actually make the investment make money then it is their shareholders who will see the value of their investments go down. I think people care about that.
Also with Netflix everything seems kinda circular in your explanations. Like everything can’t simultaneously make them a monopoly while also simultaneously not mattering. Netflix wouldn’t kill cinema. That’s not even on the table. Like come on that actually makes everything else look silly immediately. There’s so much money in Cinema still. Heck, there’s a reason why Disney isn’t doing stuff like putting Avatar Fire and Ash on Streaming immediately, because that movie cost hundreds of millions to make and made over a billion in box office.
Netflix themselves are struggling with the streaming model and that’s been made repeatedly clear. The only way they can make more money is by upping subscription prices and they can’t even do that a lot because then it’d start to lead to subscribers leaving. They wouldn’t buy WB, get rid of WB’s biggest money maker, and then funnel everything into a single business model that honestly I could also call “dying” because it is struggling to grow as new subscriptions plateau. There’s no reason to think why this move wasn’t Netflix buying into those new markets and again diversify their business portfolio. Apple didn’t “do it themselves” when they wanted to get into music & audio devices, they bought beats and made other aquistions. Same goes for when Microsoft tried to get into smartphones or even now with Netflix trying to get into gaming. If businesses can avoid it they don’t build these new ventures from the ground up, they buy assets that support them and talent that understands the markets they want to get into. If the argument against Netflix is extreme what ifs then all the same applies for Paramount. If streaming is so important to Paramount maybe they use this aquistion as an excuse to completely get rid of all their cable/TV businesses and cinema and just funnel everything into their theoritical super streaming service that charges $50 a month.
It really just boils down to “Netflix is a big streaming service, Paramount is a big cable TV & cinema entertainment company that also has an okay sized streaming.” I also looked up market shares, different sources say different things but I general Netflix sits at the 20% range and is either neck and neck or slightly under or slightly above Prime Video. Then it’s Disney+ and HBO Max both with 10 - 15% (with Max as always a couple percent lower than Disney+) and then it’s everything else (like half a dozen other services). If we’re just adding market shares together (which isn’t how it’d work; there’d be fall off from converting subscribers and there are inevitably people subscribed to both services now) Netflix would rest at somewhere under 35% (even less because they aren’t buying discovery so that’d be decoupled from Max) of the market and face extreme competition from both Amazon AND Disney (if we’re combining market shares than currently Disney & Hulu are king with Netflix and Amazon trailing by nearly 10%). That’s three big competitors with Netflix being the only company SOLELY focused on streaming (Disney has their theme parks, cinema, and cable/TV on top of all their IP and Amazon is freaking Amazon). So yeah, if we’re only talking competition concerns then I am still 100% less concerned about if Netflix bought just WB than Paramount-Skydance buying all of WBDiscovery.
Also interesting to note is yeah, the streaming market is seeing diminishing returns. Netflix has themselves interestingly stopped reporting subscriber counts and revenue earned per subscription and began focusing on reporting average time per user. They’ve gone full Microsoft in that regard. So again you could call streaming a dying market if you really wanted to. I don’t think it is, but I also don’t think there’s a universe where Netflix would buy WB and quadruple down putting all their eggs into a basket with diminishing returns and not maximizing profit growth from the massive investment they just made.
Because it is the biggest market and most likely going to be the primary market in the future of the movie industry. Cable and cinema doesn’t matter as much, obviously the focus is going to be the primary form of distribution and not the smaller or dying forms
I am not ignoring them though, I believe i even acknowledged they may need to divest some cable assets to get it past the EU, it is just it is hard to call any of that anti competitive, their are plenty of movie companies; Disney, Universal, Sony Pictures, MGM/Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Kadokawa ect. Their is plenty of compotition and Cable is dying so that likely won’t be much of a focus but they may need to divest some individual networks, I think that is likely to be a stipulation for the EU
I agree there but once the deal was set with Warner Bros their stock price shot up (granted it has since went back down to what was originally trading for), but comparing that go when Netflix announced their acquisition their is far more shareholder enthusiasm. Now I will acknowledge this may end poorly for Paramount but that is for Paramounts board to figure out and do what is best for their shareholders and if it goes poorly their shareholders could pull out, the question is more what is Paramounts plan to deal with the debt which is something no one can answer right now
Netflix isn’t Disney though, Netflix has said they don’t like Cinema, obviously me saying they would kill them was a bit of an exaggeration but they could start setting a standard of day 1 drops of streaming services (which i am actually for) which pressure competitors like Disney to follow suit. It would definitely be more damaging to theateres than a Paramount acquisition
Which was likely one of the biggest motivators behind the deal, they would merge HBO and Netflix and increase the price by $5-$10 a month depending on the tier
That could happen though the debt makes it unlikely, but their number 5 or 6 player in a market merging with the number 3 is far less concerning than the number 1 and number 3 competing merging and would lead to 3 strong competitors of comparable sizes than 2 strong competitors who market it hard for other companies to stand at a comparable level
That is likely because they have capped the amount of people who will buy Netflix which is why they recently started cracking down on password sharing and introduced ads, their finding ways to expand the amount of money they can make which will likely involve more price increases and new tiers but if they wanted to do that via cinematic releases they don’t need Warner bros to do that so we will get a definitive answer there shortly most likely. If Netflix does them they actually see value in it, if they don’t they were only making deals to try and get it though
There’s a lot of speculation here and nothing for me to add. Like calling this an argument isn’t accurate because you can’t argue hypotheticals like this. I don’t have crystal ball but looking at how things are now Netflix doesn’t look any more harmful to competition than Paramount if either were to buy WB. And if all we’re working with is hypotheticals then based on what’s currently true then I’m more worried about what Paramount could do than Netflix.
Speaking of hypotheticals I will also again say that one could say subscriptions streaming is “dying” as much as one could say Cinema is dying.
I agree their. We are speculating on what ifs and regardless if it is Netflix or Paramount their are up and down sides to both. Ideally Warner Bros would of stayed independent but that was never realistically in the cards, the moment they merged with discovery it was basically set in stone that they would be positioning themselves as an attractive buy in the future
Youtube also has subs to live tv, does free movies(older movie streaming), has partnered up with Crunchy Roll to offer anime, allows us to buy movies and tv shows.
Youtube is competition here, they just have a lower barrier of entry and creator generated content. Also thanks for ignoring the other streaming services, it just makes it clear to me you don’t have an argument.
I never said their weren’t other streaming services, I said they wouldn’t be able to compete, like obviously their are other streaming services like Peacock, apple TV, Amazon Prime TV (you could argue Amazon could compete but I think that comparison is a bit unfair as most people with Amazon Prime aren’t getting it for movies) ect. I thought that was implied
Crunchy Roll has so much more anime than every other service, that if you’re a person who wants to watch as much of it as possible non of the others are worth considering.
Being able to compete isn’t purely based on the market share size. It’s based on what a company can offer and what other companies are doing in the market (if they are employing anti-competitive practices). Netflix would only own one batch of exclusive IP and there’s not much of anything a streaming service can do to stop you from signing up for another streaming service or switching.
Amazon Prime video counts regardless of how people are signing up for subscription or for what purpose. Heck if anything that’d be what an actual cause of anti-competitve behavior would look like because the other services aren’t bundled with such different benefits. Microsoft recently had to deal with companies like Slack calling it anti-competitve that Teams was bundled with the office suite.
Again it’s hypotheticals but what’s so “uncompetable” about an at best 35% market share lead (it’d realistically be more like 30%)? Especially when Disney + Hulu is already leading with a combined 25 to 30% and all these numbers aren’t taking into account competition from platforms like YouTube (which does have live TV, movies and TV, and a subscription fee on top of user created content and an ad model). Of all the streaming services Netflix doesn’t have as much of a differentiator and Netflix right now is experiencing the least growth with diminishing returns. There’s a reason why they’re trying to add games into the mix. The assumption here is that Netflix is like the god of subscription streaming, but they’ve already lost that crown multiple times (to Amazon and Disney + Hulu and they’ve never had it if you include YouTube).