With negotiations heating up over Netflix’s bid for Warner Discovery, the streamer’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos plans to visit the White House for meetings on Thursday.
Sarandos is sure to discuss President Trump’s recent demand that Netflix fire board member Susan Rice. However, it’s not clear whether Sarandos will actually be meeting with Trump at the White House, according to Politico.
On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social that Netflix should “immediately” fire former UN ambassador and board member Rice or “pay the consequences.” Sarandos responded in an interview, “This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal.”
While Netflix is working to finalize a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studios and streaming businesses for $83 billion, Paramount Skydance recently increased its offer to $31 a share.
WBD’s board “will engage further” with Paramount to determine if a “company superior proposal” — a term defined within the language of its existing Netflix pact — can be reached. Netflix will have four business days to propose revisions to its deal if the WBD board finds Paramount Skydance’s offer to be superior.
Meanwhile, Paramount CEO David Ellison attended Tuesday’s State of the Union address as a guest of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
The Department of Justice Antitrust division is currently assessing Netflix’s market power and dealmaking, while Sarandos told Variety recently that he has been working hard to combat the perception that Netflix has an outsized share of the market.
“Most of the work that we’ve been doing is un-ringing the bells of a misinformation campaign. What is our market share? I mean, the market share is very clear. Nielsen publishes the market share constantly, called The Gauge, and it shows that we are 9% of the business. And if you put HBO together with us, we’re 10% of the business. And it certainly is nowhere near monopoly, which folks have been batting around the last couple of days, which is 50-70% market share. It’s insane,” Sarandos said Friday.
Netflix had no comment.
