Back in September, when it seemed likely that Paramount Skydance would acquire Warner Bros., a potential extinction-level event for an industry already reeling, I brought together some of today’s sharpest legal and policy minds — including former FTC chair Lina Khan, former FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and monopoly expert Matt Stoller, writer of the BIG newsletter, to discuss how to fight back against one more Hollywood studio swallowing another.
Now, that fight is at the door: On Friday, Netflix announced it had struck a deal to purchase Warner Bros.’ film and television studio — an action that would combine the top streamer with the No. 3 service (HBO Max) and potentially deal a death blow to the theatrical business.
“It’s going to be amazing,” Stoller told me on today’s emergency Substack Live with notable sarcasm in his voice.
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To untangle this mess and come up with a game plan to push back, I reconvened with Stoller and Bedoya to discuss what could block the Netflix-Warner Bros. plan and why — despite fancy press releases to the contrary — it’s far from a done deal.
“Not only do I think this deal can be stopped, but I also don’t think this deal is actually intended to go through,” Stoller said. “I think this deal is crazy…. It’s just a merger to monopoly, and everybody knows it. This is just very, very obvious what is happening here, and it’s obviously illegal.”
In the read of both of our guests, one likelihood is that Netflix doesn’t even want to acquire the studio. Instead, it’s maneuvering to tie one of its main streaming competitors up in regulatory red tape for years in order to degrade the Warner Bros. assets and straitjacket the company as a competitor for both creators and audience.
“This is really bad faith by Netflix,” Stoller added. “And I hope that the DOJ and the state enforcers and foreign enforcers really look into them and that this happens sometimes — where a company will try to buy another company, they’ll get a merger investigation, and in the course of a merger investigation, they actually discover other things that the company is doing that’s wrong.”
Added Bedoya, “Everything will grind slower and slower until there is some resolution on this deal in one way or another. If I have a pilot I’m trying to sell, I certainly think that the situation at HBO Max is going to be a lot slower in the context of this deal going through than it would otherwise.”
Still, while the vibes are certainly bleak, Stoller suggested there is a chance of stopping this — citing again the community action that blocked the merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster in 2022 as proof that victory is possible. (Stoller has noted that Simon & Schuster is thriving under its current ownership by KKR.)
“We don’t have to tolerate a society where everything gets worse, but you have to start winning that battle in your own mind,” Stoller said. “You have to think, ‘I’m not going to take myself off the playing field, and I’m not going to look at myself as a non-player character. Actually, I’m going to engage, and I’m going to write my state attorney general and say, Please challenge it. I’m going to talk to my friends. I’m going to tell the industry that it needs to speak out. If I can’t do that publicly, I’m going to try to figure out ways of doing it privately, encouraging the organizations that I work with to do that, to write anonymous letters.”’
Watch our whole conversation above, and stay tuned for more from me on this very soon.
