Netflix declines to raise its offer to buy Warner, says deal is ‘no longer financially attractive’

AP News ^ | February 26, 2026 | WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS

[MinorityRepublican]

Netflix is declining to raise its offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business, in a stunning move that effectively puts Paramount in a position to take over the fellow storied Hollywood giant.

On Thursday, after Warner’s board announced that Skydance-owned Paramount’s offer was superior to the agreement it had previously struck with Netflix, the streaming giant said the new price that would be required to buy Warner would make it a deal that is “no longer financially attractive.”

Unlike Netflix’s bid, Paramount wants all of Warner’s operations, including networks like CNN and Discovery. That would put CNN under the same roof as Paramount’s CBS and combine two of Hollywood’s last five remaining studios.

The owner of HBO Max, DC Studios and popular titles like “Harry Potter” had backed Netflix’s proposal for months. But after Skydance-owned Paramount upped its rival bid for the entire company to $31 per share, in addition to other revisions, Warner’s board on Thursday said that the offer “constitutes a ‘company superior proposal.’”

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TOPICS: Chit/Chat; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: davidellison; netflix; paramountskydance; warnerbrosdiscovery

[lee martell]

Maybe Netflix would rather keep Susan Rice on their board of directors, than remove her, as per conditions demanded by The President last week.

[frank ballenger]

That would put CNN under the same roof

Exec: "Gee, I thought I smelled something awful in here. I have to rush to find a bucket."

[GreatRoad]

I thought the same thing.

[falcon99]

Probably so, after all, it is a woke, Leftist organization pumping out propaganda.

[monkeyshine]

All this activity reminds me of the consolidation of the music industry around the time of Napster. And, a bit, like Time Warner paying an absurd price for AOL when dial-up was on the way out and DSL and fiber were growing. Meaning, we are on the cusp of AI generated content. Unions in the film industry largely prohibit use of AI (though, I bet not a single writer doesn’t use AI to aid their writing, it’s just verboten to use AI to generate a script on its own from a prompt). AI content can come from outside of the studio/star system (and, it does). There is a lot of AI slop on YouTube but there is also some really great content. It will get better. And costs are much lower. Scale is much lower. It will only grow. And delivery costs should decline as well - either stream it over Youtube or Rumble or X or others or stream it from a website directly. Distribution costs are lower as a ratio of income for AI content or anything being streamed for that matter. People will want “free” or nearly free just like they did Napster.

The subscription model has grown and grown and grown to absurdity - you have to subscribe to operate a tractor! But at $10-$20 per service it is not cheaper than Cable if you want it all. We want competition to reduce costs, but we are getting domestic consolidation and higher costs which means, simply, that content will get produced overseas. “All your base are belong to us.”

[frank ballenger]

When the 1923 company Warner Bros. was still new in 1927 it gambled on the risky idea of the new synchronized sound invention to be installed in theaters to make possible the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer.
The Biography story of Al Jolson had one of the Warner adult children saying they had to borrow so much money that he was told his grandmother’s jewelry was “hocked” to get some of the cash.

[monkeyshine]

Yes, that’s what “they” hate the most... the idea that several cable channels will go to a slightly more centrist management. Netflix wants the movies and TV shows but not the “broadcast over cable” which they plan to spin off into a separate entity that will just have declining viewership over a long period of time. Paramount/Skydance already has broadcast division in house so they can keep the networks and not spin them off (though, no guarantee they won’t put CBS and the others into a larger package of networks and spin them off later). So Paramount’s deal is sort of “better” not just that it’s a significantly higher price but it keeps the entire entity together, at least for a while.

The future of streaming content requires content no single studio can entertain everyone. At most a single studio or Distributor will release a handful of films and TV shows a year. Consolidating them could help the consumer a little bit in the short term but in the long term a diversity of content via AI rendering is going to dilute the overall value of content in general. Supply goes up.

[SunkenCiv]

To reiterate: whomever 'wins' the fight for WBD may ultimately be the loser. There's some sports streaming in the assets, but everything else is legacy / archival. At first I thought the reason the Warner board was seemingly stonewalling was that there were backroom discussions of really nice golden parachutes coming their way if they took the Netflix deal. Turns out, the board may actually have had the shareholders in mind.

[possible blue language, I just listened to it again but can't remember] Jim Jefferies... 

Mansplaining at its finest #JimJefferies | 1:08
Netflix Is A Joke | 4.54M subscribers | 6,275,429 views | August 12, 2025

[sphinx]

That would put CNN under the same roof as Paramount’s CBS and combine two of Hollywood’s last five remaining studios.

That's misguided. The streamers have been buying up the legacy studios for years, not to acquire more production capacity but rather to get control of their catalogues of older movies and shows and shove them behind a paywall.

Meanwhile, the technology of actual filmmaking continues to improve. The barriers to entry are being massively reduced. New production companies, mostly small partnerships, pop out of nowhere; some find success and grow, while others may only make one film.

The chokepoint in the industry today is distribution. The streamers are fighting to become the key gatekeepers. The basic problem with the Netflix-WBD deal is that it would have combined the #1 and #3 streaming platforms into a giant that would have offended every antitrust standard ever known.

The best option would have been for WBD to remain independent. If it had to be sold, a Paramount deal was preferable. Netflix would still be #1, but Paramount would be more competitive.

The biggest issue is preserving viable theatrical distribution. The independent producers need the festivals and theaters to find distribution outside the big tech Borg. For over a decade, Ted Sarandos at Netflix has been the most outspoken industry bigwig calling for an end to theaters and total streamer control of distribution. When opposition mounted to the Netflix-WBD deal, Sarandos started making conciliatory noises about a newfound commitment to (still much shorter) theatrical windows. No one believes him.

[Celerity]

Funny when Elon musk said that about Twitter the courts forced the purchase.

[kaktuskid]

Supposedly CNN gets spun off with Discovery and the other WB cable channels

[spintreebob]

Clear win for our side. Clear loss for them. Larry & David Ellison of Oracle & Trump’s friends can now change CNN & CBS into an honest dispenser of the news.

[WhiteHatBobby0701]

Sarandos has made it clear films are for streaming, no silver screen, get them as nasty as they want to be because there is no “Kyle Busch Rule” on streaming the way a cinema is regulated by the regulation banning those under 18 from working or attending a movie in a multiplex if an X film is showing on one screen. It is about pushing the envelope to encourage more X films and leftist activism.

Now Apple and Netflix have a sharing deal for Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” that will give the Obama controlled service simulcasting rights for the Canadian Grand Prix on May 24 at 4 PM EDT.

Ending syndication of classic shows is one goal of streamers. Move it all to their premium tiers.

Another part of streaming is unlike your Charter subscription, the PBA, NASCAR O’Reilly, and other events on The CW are not available on streaming the way Charter can provide it because it is on a digital subchannel of the NBC affiliate, owned by Gray Media.

CNN and MTV are likely to be spun off because of revenue. Some TNT Sports events could be sent to CBS to increase as rates and viewership.

[GOPJ]

Nice analysis....