Netflix announced the blockbuster deal with Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday morning. It has agreed to buy the legendary TV and movie studio and assets like the HBO Max streaming service for $72 billion.
Netflix announced the blockbuster deal with Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday morning. It has agreed to buy the legendary TV and movie studio and assets like the HBO Max streaming service for $72 billion.
In terms of management of what content gets made? Yeah, probably about the same. A lot better than ellison where you can bet that stuff like The Pitt would have been instantly halted until they added enough scenes where the guy who beat up a nurse is shown to be the real hero and the southeast asian doctors all get deported before the shift ends.
But the zazlovian “if we cancel this we get more money than if we show it” nonsense will likely accelerate.
In terms of media quality? The best “joke” I have seen is that the new season of White Lotus is going to just be filmed on a green screen set. And… yeah.
The bigger problem on the Netflix side is what this means for theatres (and… I kind of honestly lean on the side of “fuck 'em” but understand they serve a purpose) and the price of streaming services in general. The best case scenario is increasingly looking like Netflix effectively becoming Cable where you have a base package and then pick what networks/studios you want on top of that. Which, to be fair, is what we already see with Disney and ESPN on Hulu or whatever. But… prices are going up regardless.
Also, it is still a bit murky as to exactly what is and isn’t in this deal. My understanding is that WBD studios and productions are but the network channels aren’t. So ellison is still likely to own CNN by 2027. But Netflix will likely be John Oliver’s new Business Daddy (although I increasingly suspect LWT is planning to go independent).
And… as a wrestling sicko, things look real bleak. TNT/TBS will likely go to ellison. But AEW’s streaming contract (not sure if it expires in that timeframe) is potentially going to be owned by Netflix who already do streaming for wwe/ufc. And… pretty sure the super horny super gay wrestling show where the World Men’s Champion gets out and cuts a promo in high school Spanish while the coolest male tag team come out in “fuck ICE” clothing are going to get killed in favor of the promotion putting pyramid power on their turnbuckles and constantly making sure no black man can ever be successful under HH Helmseley.
It is REAL fucked that fucking Comcast was probably the best outcome for all this…