Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood
About this episode
In this episode, Alex Sherman discusses Netflix's unexpected decision to walk away from a deal with Paramount and the implications of recent media mergers.
Netflix shocked the world last year by winning a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. This week it shocked us by walking away.In this emergency bonus episode, CNBC’s Alex Sherman walks us through the whiplash: Why Netflix chose not to counter Paramount, what the market blowback signaled, and how much of this was about price versus the very real prospect of a long, ugly regulatory and political slog.Then we spin it forward: what a Paramount/WBD mash-up means in practice (translation: overlap, “synergies,” and a lot of job anxiety)? What happens to crown-jewel assets like HBO and CNN? And why this isn’t just another media merger, but a power shift. We don’t really know what David and Larry Ellison have planned for their newly acquired media empire — but we do know that they are now very big players. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
People in this episode
Host: Peter Kafka
Guest: Alex Sherman
Topics covered
- media mergers
- Netflix
- Paramount
- Warner Bros. Discovery
- regulatory issues
- Hollywood
- Ellison family
Keywords
- Netflix
- Paramount
- Warner Bros. Discovery
- media merger
- Ellison
- HBO
- CNN
- regulatory
- political
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, HBO, CNN
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