A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
There is a winner in the epic Hollywood bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, and that winner is David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In a stunning turnaround, Warner Bros. Discovery dropped a deal it had already struck with the streaming giant Netflix for an improved offer from Paramount, and Netflix walked away.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik is reporting on this. David, Warner Bros. rejected a lot of offers for Paramount. What happened?
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Well, Warner Bros. originally didn't want Paramount to be bid at all. Paramount triggered all of this by saying, we want to take you guys over. And that opened this up. And it struck a deal with Netflix, which the Warner Bros. board and the Warner Bros. leadership vastly preferred, at least initially. Netflix had said, we'll give you a deal valued at $83 billion and take over your streaming assets, your studios, your intellectual property, like DC Studios, Harry Potter and the like, and we'll spin off your cable channels. Paramount wanted the whole enchilada, the whole megillah, and ultimately sweetened its deal to a value in excess of about $111 billion. And...
MARTÍNEZ: Wow.
FOLKENFLIK: ...Yesterday, Warner Bros. Discovery's board said, you know what? That's a better deal. Netflix had four business days to try to top it. Instead, it walked away - it was spooking investors - and said, we don't really need it that badly. We're a giant streamer. We'll do fine.
MARTÍNEZ: A hundred and eleven billion. That is one meaty enchilada. So what would Paramount look like now after swallowing Warner Bros. Discovery?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, think about it. This would be a Hollywood behemoth. You'd have Warner Bros. Studios and Paramount Studios under the same roof. You'd have Paramount+, the streaming property, which is a bit on the smaller side, paired with HBO Max, one of the dominant streamers coming from Hollywood. You'd have CBS and CBS News with CNN and Comedy Central and Discovery and TBS and a bunch of other properties showing a lot of entertainment and sports. This is going to be a major player in Hollywood intended to take on the streamers - not just Netflix, but also Amazon Prime and Apple - to have, you know, a major force to walk into the future of streaming.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, this still has to go through review by antitrust regulators. So what happens with that?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, it's got to go through review from the U.S. Justice Department, given its combination of enormous media and entertainment assets, but it's also got to go through regulation in Europe. And, you know, those are not the only ones involved. The state attorney general of California said he intends not only to review this, but potentially to sue to block this. And there are other interested parties that could weigh in here. So this is usually a very intense and significant scrutiny going on here. And at the same time, you know, we live in a slightly different age.
MARTÍNEZ: So, David, you mentioned that if this deal closes, Paramount gets to add CNN to what it's getting. It was pretty wild to watch Jake Tapper break this news Thursday on his show on CNN.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER")
JAKE TAPPER: So we have some breaking news in our national lead that affects everybody I'm looking at right now in the studio. Moments ago, Netflix said...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So, David, what changes might David Ellison make to CNN?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, look, the Ellisons - David Ellison and his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison - are very close to President Trump. President Trump has made clear he cares very much about what happens to CNN. You've seen the owners of the LA Times, The Washington Post and the Ellisons themselves at CBS alter and reconfigure their news properties to placate Trump and his allies in the current moment. And Trump has shown he's willing to interfere with corporate maneuvering, like the one we're seeing play out right now.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR's David Folkenflik. David, thanks.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
