Just days after Netflix announced that it had won the bidding war over Warner Bros. Discovery — thanks to an $82.7 billion deal — looks like the deal may hit a significant roadblock: Donald Trump. The US president said the combined size of the duo “could be a problem.”
Speaking at an event at the John F Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the US president noted that Netflix’s already “very large market share” was likely to “increase a lot” if the deal was allowed to go ahead.
He’s not wrong either.
Current market share estimates suggest that Netflix and HBO Max (WBD’s streaming service) together control 34% of the US streaming market – which is above the level of control that US Justice Department antitrust rules would allow after a merger. However, these figures do not include YouTube.
It is believed that Netflix’s lawyers will argue that Netflix and WBD’s market share is much smaller when taking into account Google’s platform – with statistics showing that YouTube has the highest video streaming viewership share by some margin. They may also try to downplay WBD as a streaming rival, focusing instead on its utility as a production studio and content library.
Personal policy
In addition to market share considerations, the president’s comments about wanting an unprecedented level of involvement in the negotiations have led some to wonder if more personal views could play a role in decision-making.
Trump has had some very positive things to say about Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, calling him “a great person” who has “done one of the greatest jobs in the history of film.”
However, reports also suggest (via The Guardian ) that President Trump would have preferred Paramount’s offer to buy WBD to win. David Ellison is the CEO of Paramount, and the deal to buy WBD was backed by his father, Larry Ellison, a staunch Trump ally. Larry Ellison is also at the center of the American TikTok acquisition.
David Ellison directly referred to having a “Trump card” (via The Independent) in his pocket to help a possible Paramount WBD acquisition go through before the Netflix deal was chosen, and recently Paramount described the Netflix deal as “unfair”.
None of this means that personal politics will be a major consideration for the administration, but it does add further fuel to the fire of speculation that Netflix’s deal could ultimately be blocked.
To block or not to block
That said, we’ve already covered these arguments and more in our analysis with experts on what the Netflix and Warner Bros. deal could mean for you. TL;DR: more content on one platform, but price increases are likely, and working in the entertainment industry could become even more challenging.
So to some extent, while Trump’s involvement isn’t par for the course, it’s not unreasonable that Netflix has already considered all the possible ways the deal could collapse, and despite those pitfalls, is so confident things will be approved that the deal includes a $5.8 billion breakup fee (via The Hollywood Reporter).
This wouldn’t just pay off if Netflix goes away; Netflix pays this fine if the deal doesn’t go through for some reason. It is a lot of money to offer if it is not reasonably certain that the supervisory authorities will approve the purchase.
We’re still very early days in a deal, which isn’t expected to close until the end of 2026 — potentially not even until we’re in 2027. That means we’ve got plenty of time to see some twists and turns play out before we know whether HBO Max’s name change saga ends at ‘Netflix’ or something else entirely.
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