Lee: Potential Netflix Buy of Warner Bros. Would 'Raise Serious Competition Questions'
Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, said Wednesday night that a potential Netflix purchase of Warner Bros., “if it were to materialize, would raise serious competition questions -- perhaps more so than any transaction I’ve seen in about a decade.” Warner Bros. Discovery said in October that it was mulling unsolicited offers to buy just a split of WB or the entire company, even as it considers continuing to pursue division of WB and Discovery Global (see 2510210007).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Lee was responding to reports that DOJ Antitrust Division head Gail Slater and her senior staff are working on plans for a multiyear probe into whether Netflix holds a monopoly over the streaming market. DOJ and Netflix didn’t immediately comment. Paramount Skydance’s lawyers reportedly wrote WBD CEO David Zaslav this week to complain about what they see as an increasingly “tilted and unfair” sale process for the company.
“Learning about Netflix’s ambition to buy its real competitive threat -- WBD’s streaming business -- should send alarm to antitrust enforcers around the world,” Lee said on X. “When Netflix has real competition, viewers and artists win. Netflix built a great service, but increasing Netflix’s dominance this way would mean the end of the Golden Age of streaming for content creators and consumers.”