U.S. president Donald Trump stated he would have a say on whether the proposed merger between Netflix and Warner Bros would go ahead. “I’ll be involved in that decision,” Trump told reporters as he arrived at the Kennedy Center for its annual awards show.
Netflix announced on Friday that it reached a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing an end to the dramatic bidding process that also saw Paramount Skydance and Comcast vying for legacy assets. The deal is for WBD’s film studio and streaming service, HBO Max. Warner Bros. Discovery will still spin out its TV networks, which includes TNT and CNN, as previously planned.
Trump flagged potential concerns over the deal. He reportedly said Netflix has a “big market share” and the firms’ combined size “could be a problem”.
READ: Netflix strikes deal to buy Warner Bros Discovery for $27.75 per share (
The US Justice Department’s competition division, which oversees major mergers, could say that the deal violates the law if the combined businesses account for too much of the streaming market. Trump said that Netflix has a “very big market share” which would “go up by a lot” if the deal goes ahead.
He also said that Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently visited the Oval Office and praised him for his work at the company. “I have a lot of respect for him. He’s a great person,” said Trump. “He’s done one of the greatest jobs in the history of movies.”
Sarandos had earlier acknowledged that the agreement may have surprised investors but said it was a chance to position Netflix for success in the “decades to come”. Blair Westlake, a media executive and former chair of Universal Studios’ television and networks group, told the BBC’s Today programme that “the only two pieces that matter” when it came to competition concerns were the combination of Netflix and Warner Brothers’ HBO streaming business. “Netflix is not in the studio production business the way Warner Brothers is, and even the library size of films and television programming that Netflix owns pales in comparison to Warner,” he said.
READ: Netflix set to buy Warner Bros. Discovery in major all-cash acquisition (
However, experts have said that while the deal would give WBD a strong position in streaming, it would not look so dominant if regulators adopt a broader definition, to include cable and broadcast TV and also YouTube as competitors.
Meanwhile, Bill Kovacic, a former chair of the US competition watchdog the Federal Trade Commission said that Trump’s comments meant negotiations over any problems surrounding the deal were “going to run through the White House”. “That means that we’re going to have probably a deep level, an unprecedented level of presidential control in the resolution of what used to be a technical analysis of a merger,” he said.