Even President Donald Trump weighed in this weekend on Netflix’s purchase of the Warner Bros. studio and its nearly century-old library of classic movies and TV shows. “They have a very big market share and when they have Warner Bros., you know, that share goes up a lot so, I don’t know,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “I’ll be involved in that decision, too. But they have a very big market share.”
It isn’t often you see Trump maybe taking the same side as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-The Rez.) on any issue, but on Friday, Fauxcahontas called the proposed buyout “an anti-monopoly nightmare” that “would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices.”
But what about that barely known, little-watched property named Cable News Network?
Founded by famous crazy person Ted Turner in 1980, CNN was the first 24-hour news network, but has long been in third place behind rivals Fox News and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC).
Time Warner bought CNN as part of its purchase of Turner Broadcasting System in 1996, later becoming WarnerMedia before merging with Discovery to create Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) [pause for deep breath], which Netflix just offered to buy for $82 billion, mostly in cash.
Yeah, Netflix has that kind of cash. If Hollywood was a neighborhood poker game, Netflix is the new player who shows up with a diamond pinky ring and a couple grand in his pocket.
But here’s the thing. Netflix only somewhat needs WBD for its studios and talent. The Los Gatos-based streamer and production company already has plenty of both, pumping out dumbed-down “second-screen” content like a firehose.
Hollywood — already hurting — expects layoffs to follow. The Writers Guild of America, the union representing Hollywood scribes, said Friday that a buyout “would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers, and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers.”
From there, things get worse.
And Another Thing: I cannot stress this enough, but go to Amazon, eBay, wherever and buy physical media while you still can. Netflix only cares about getting you to pay the $8-$24 a month subscription fee, forever. The company will likely stop selling DVD/Blu-Ray/4K versions of every single IP I just mentioned. And more. They’ll also be free to do whatever else they want with those properties, including altering them for “modern audiences.” BUY. PHYSICAL. MEDIA. I’m begging you, before it’s too late.
What Netflix really wants is all those juicy Warner Bros. intellectual properties. $82 billion might seem steep, but think of it the way Netflix does — as enough IP to keep the content firehose spraying for another century.
Warner’s crown jewels include Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings (the good parts that Amazon didn’t pay ONE BILLION DOLLARS for), HBO’s entire catalog, Looney Tunes, Friends, The Matrix, Dune, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, Gone with the Wind, A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Blade Runner…
I could go on (and on), but you get the point: If this deal goes through, Netflix will own a huge chunk of modern Americana.
But CNN? They’re left out crying in the rain, not singing in it.
CNN is still part of Warner’s troubled television division, which as a whole has lost tens of billions of dollars since 2022, mostly due to write-downs of once-valuable assets. And Netflix isn’t interested. The buyout is structured around WBD’s existing plan to split into two separate publicly traded companies in mid-2026, now set for the 3rd quarter.
Basically, WBD will spin off all of its under-performers in a new company called Discovery Global, designed as a nearly doomed standalone — a zero-growth cable company facing cord-cutting and ad revenue erosion.
Discovery Global will get none of that Netflix cash. The new company will have to sink or swim on its own.
CNN has survived a lot since 1980, but can it survive the need to pay its own way?
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