Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#671

Post by hateful » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:22 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #641

jodrellblank wrote: post #626

Off topic, but I am boggled that Larry Ellison came back to “richest man in the world” this year. For all the enormous Reach of Facebook adverts, Apple, Microsoft breadth of products, Tesla and SpaceX and Twitter, Amazon’s massive cloud dominance, the AI boom for nVidia… Oracle?! “ On September 10, 2025, Ellison was briefly the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$393 billion. In June 202…

Everyone else is too busy spending everything they have on GPUs, DRAM and power plants? Joking. Honestly, the only thing that surprises me more than seeing Larry Ellison at the top of the list, is seeing Netflix buying Warner Bros, and not the other way around . Maybe I'm too old, but the very notion somehow does not compute.

It felt the same way when AOL bought Time Warner.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#672

Post by letmeinhere » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #182

Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison, as was considered very likely (assuming this merger gets approved, in the current administration you never know). From a Hacker News perspective, I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate but surely you’d be looking to move them to Netflix…

> In June 2025, WBD announced plans to separate its Streaming & Studios and Global Networks divisions into two separate publicly traded companies. This separation is now expected to be completed in Q3 2026, prior to the closing of this transaction. The newly separated publicly traded company holding the Global Networks division, Discovery Global, will include premier entertainment, sports and news television brands around the world including CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S., and Discovery, free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital products such as Discovery+ and Bleacher Report.

So no, I don't think this gets in the way of Ellison taking over the rest of TV news; if anything it seems like it smooths the path.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#673

Post by coder543 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

yibg wrote: post #640

thayne wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a separation between the streaming platform companies and the content making companies, so that the streaming companies can compete on making a better platform/service and the content companies compete on making better content. I don't want one company that owns everything, I want several companies that are able to license whatever content they want. And ideally the customer can choose between a subscription t…

You can today no? You can buy or rent a single movie / tv series from apple tv, amazon etc. problem is most people don't want to buy each thing they want to watch.

Netflix (notoriously) does not license most of their content this way. You can't rent/buy Stranger Things on Apple TV, no matter how much you're willing to pay. If Netflix acquires Warner Bros, I expect this restriction to extend to that content too over time.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#674

Post by gopalv » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

skywhopper wrote: post #271

CamouflagedKiwi wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I never really had a sensible option to watch Game of Thrones legally, it's a little late for that now but presumably this would mean it's on Netflix which would be significantly better for me. (I guess useful for House of the Dragon now). I don't think I care much about the upcoming Harry Potter show but if I did want to watch that, I'm not sure what my options would be, and Netflix seems better than m…

lol at the idea that Netflix would ever produce something as high-quality as GoT or HotD. Those days will soon be over.

> produce something as high-quality as GoT

Netflix is a different creature because of streaming and time shifting.

They don't care about people watching a pilot episode or people binge watching last 3 seasons when a show takes off.

The quality metric therefore is all over the place, it is a mildly moderated popularity contest.

If people watch "Love is Blind", you'll get more of those.

On the other hand, this means they can take a slightly bigger risk than a TV network with ADs, because you're likely to switch to a different Netflix show that you like and continue to pay for it, than switch to a different channel which pays a different TV network.

As long as something sticks the revenue numbers stay, the ROI can be shaky.

Black Mirror Bandersnatch for example was impossible to do on TV, but Netflix could do it.

Also if GoT was Netflix, they'd have cancelled it on Season 6 & we'd be lamenting the loss of what wonders it'd have gotten to by Season 9.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#675

Post by cced » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:28 PM UTC

Kapura wrote: post #651

I feel like when I was growing up, I learned about how monopolization was bad for society when it came to industries like steel and rail. but for some reason in the 21st century we've decided that maybe corporations are somehow... better citizens or something? despite the evidence? Obviously, the reason it's gotten this bad is that lobbying is legal and private campaign funding is mandatory. Thanks again, citizens un…

We didn't decided that–they did.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#676

Post by autoexec » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:29 PM UTC

throwaway20222 wrote: post #445

taeric wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular one could be ok for them? A major cost for Netflix in the modern era is licensing contracts that never adjusted to the streaming world. As such, consumers may actually get access to some backlog of WB stuff that is otherwise not worth offering?

My guess is you are right for some properties that WB owns outright, but legacy IP that has rights shared, especially pre-streaming rights will still have a lot of barriers/untangling to do. I think Netflix is the most well run media company today by a mile, but also on the spectrum of quality/art -vs- straight money/tech domination they fall into the latter category, and they are the among the least friendly to crea…

Netflix is a terrible media company. They don't invest in their library and are happy to cancel shows without concluding them screwing the creators and the fans. They canceled a show within the same month it released!

If a show does somehow get more than one season they can also be painfully slow. Stranger things took a 9 years to drop just 5 seasons. The Witcher was 6 years for just 4 seasons.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#677

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:29 PM UTC

hateful wrote: post #671

TeMPOraL wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone else is too busy spending everything they have on GPUs, DRAM and power plants? Joking. Honestly, the only thing that surprises me more than seeing Larry Ellison at the top of the list, is seeing Netflix buying Warner Bros, and not the other way around . Maybe I'm too old, but the very notion somehow does not compute.

It felt the same way when AOL bought Time Warner.

In business, it's sometimes more about people's expectations for a company's future than their past performance.

We must never assume the market is rational, and enough people getting hyped at the same time can give a company enough short-term cash to make an unexpected move.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#678

Post by ikkun » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:30 PM UTC

thevillagechief wrote: post #638

The reaction here is interesting. I thought this is what people wanted, a consolidation of all the streaming services into one so you did not have to subscribe to 10 different ones. I personally think it's a bad idea, but people need to figure out exactly what they want.

I don't think many people want one monolith to own all content, what they want is an easy way to watch content from multiple different content owners without having to juggle subscriptions.

music does this far better, there's multiple different platforms that all have the vast majority of music people care about, you can easily opt to rent with streaming or purchase outright and download without DRM. spotify would probably love to have tons of exclusive content, and they're trying this with podcasts etc, but the music industry hasn't been able to enshittify as much as the movie industry, yet.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#679

Post by VanshPatel99 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

R.I.P to the quality of HBO shows and looking forward to slow burn shows getting cancelled more now. HBO has been going through a really bad phase recently ha. With Discovery, WB and now this. Is it too much to hope that the quality of content won't drop to Netflix level? I just hope the "give writers the time and resources" mindset of HBO doesn't change

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#680

Post by unit149 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

Criterion licenses Turner Classic Movies (TCM) after launching their streaming service in 2019. According to the Wall Street Journal, the offer was $27.75 per Warner Discovery, which owns TCM accounting for a $82.7 bn value. Paramount's bid was $30 for Warner Brothers's cable network M&A, seeking lateralise the monopoly.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20251205081209/https://www.wsj.c...