Netflix, Warner Bros. and the Global Fallout Begins
U.S. upheaval is ripping through Europe
I cover int’l TV from London. Before my mat leave, I wrote about how sports doc producers navigate a “brutal” landscape, why Amazon is fumbling its U.K. business and the British company behind Netflix’s Adolescence. I’m at manori@theankler.com
Someone asked me recently if much had happened on my beat while I was on maternity leave, and, well, I think it’s safe to say everything happened. Every big media story — both in the U.S. and international — seems to have transpired over the last six months while I was off wrangling a tiny dictator (I mean, my own). The upside is that coming back to work feels like an all-inclusive holiday in comparison.
As Guy Bisson, co-founder and executive director of London-based research firm Ampere Analysis, pointed out when we caught up recently: “We’re in one of these cycles that happens every 10 to 15 years where you end up in a global industry reorganization.”
Never mind the industry, lately it feels like a full global reorg of everything. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put it in Davos yesterday, “The rules-based order is fading.” And that may form an uneasy backdrop to our industry machinations. President Donald Trump’s latest broadside for Greenland could unleash a European trade “bazooka” (as Emmanuel Macron labeled it) or “Anti-Coercion Instrument,” that could have American Big Tech in its crosshairs if activated.
But veteran analyst Claire Enders is doubtful Trump’s latest posturing turns European regulators against U.S. media companies already established on the continent.
“It’s a very long road before the EU competition rules would ever be muscled over by political pressure,” Enders tells me. “There is legislation, there are processes, and they’ve been in place for a very long time. The companies are used to navigating them.”
Netflix, for example, has a “very strong and positive reputation in Europe” and has “been additive to the ecology of the creative systems of many countries,” Enders says. If its acquisition of Warner Bros. gets the greenlight in the U.S., media plurality concerns in Europe would be minimal, given Netflix’s primary offering is a streaming service and HBO Max is still nascent here. Paramount Skydance, with its own extensive portfolio of channels and operations, would be another story. But for most in the U.K. and Europe, it feels like a foregone conclusion that Netflix emerges victorious.
One scoopy note before we get into it: I understand WBD’s separation — when the company splits into Warner Bros. for streaming and studios and Discovery Global for linear networks, a split planned before the company put itself up for sale — has been communicated internally for July 1, and the new entities are expected to be operational from that date. (When I reached out for comment, WBD pointed to guidance from Netflix’s all-cash offer this week that notes the split will be “completed in six to nine months, prior to the closing of the proposed Netflix and Warner Bros. transaction.”)
Today I’m breaking down three issues the international TV industry can’t stop talking about. Together, they show how U.S. disruption is rippling through Europe — and how European business is still playing by a different set of rules.
First, the M&A: Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros. and the proposed merger between Survivor and The Traitors producers Banijay and All3Media.
Then, the BBC’s long-awaited (and uneasy) deal with an increasingly dominant YouTube.
And finally, the microdrama wave that’s now breaking in the U.K., where creators have some very British ideas about how to make the format work.
For paid subscribers:
What’s at stake for Netflix in Europe if its bid for Warner Bros. is successful
Why European TV execs are more sanguine about the tie-up than film people, who warn it would be “a cultural disaster”
Why British and French cinema owners already are lobbying regulators ahead of any Netflix-owned Warner Bros. future
What an All3Media–Banijay merger means for Europe’s unscripted TV ecosystem. (Says one source: don’t “two things slightly on fire just become more of a dumpster fire?”)
Why Channel 5 looks safe (for now) at Paramount Skydance, and why it matters to streaming chief Cindy Holland
How the BBC’s YouTube strategy, an awkward capitulation after years of resisting a partnership, could be a costly mistake
The high-low microdrama experiments being run by British producers right now
 | A guest post by
|