Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co‑CEO, spent the week at company headquarters pushing back against critics and defending Netflix’s roughly $83 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. In interviews and remarks to shareholders, he dismissed attacks from Paramount Skydance as a smear campaign and urged regulators and investors to focus on the facts of the deal rather than the noise from rival bidders.
What Netflix is promising
Sarandos reiterated several specific operational commitments built into Netflix’s offer. Most notable: Netflix would honor a 45‑day exclusive theatrical window before films move on to paid‑on‑demand or download windows, rather than debuting on the streamer the moment theatrical exclusivity expires. He also said existing home‑entertainment and pay‑TV arrangements tied to HBO output would remain in force, with more than a hundred agreements expected to be preserved globally.
Sarandos framed these assurances not as PR pledges but as practical protections for theaters, distributors and the broader ecosystem. The message was clear: Netflix sees theatrical releases and streaming as complementary, not oppositional, and wants to keep multiple revenue streams — box office, PVOD, pay TV and streaming — functioning together.
How Netflix defends the price
Netflix says the $83 billion bid grew out of detailed, bottom‑up valuation work: libraries, franchises, series, audience behaviour and monetization forecasts. While Sarandos declined to disclose granular financial inputs — calling some elements the company’s “secret sauce” — he stressed the offer is board‑approved and designed to give shareholders operational clarity and long‑term certainty.
In his public rebuttal to Paramount Skydance and CEO David Ellison, Sarandos pushed back on claims that the merged company would dominate viewing. He cited independent metrics that put Netflix at roughly 9% of measured viewing, with Netflix plus HBO near 10%, arguing that viewing is still widely distributed across many players. He portrayed rival rhetoric as a defensive effort to derail the bid rather than a precise accounting of market dynamics.
Regulatory context and timelines
Warner Bros. Discovery opened a short, seven‑day clarification window for rival bids as part of a procedural phase that also includes a scheduled shareholder meeting. Sarandos warned that filing Hart‑Scott‑Rodino paperwork is only the first step — a notification to regulators — not a sign of approval. He noted that enforcement agencies have grown more active in recent years, and that any merger will face careful competition scrutiny.
Management highlighted key dates (including a Feb. 23 deadline tied to the voting timetable) and said it will limit public commentary as the window progresses. The company also signaled discipline: it will consider any superior bid but is prepared to walk away rather than overpay.
Points of contention
Paramount’s objections focus on market share and regulatory risk; Netflix counters with data showing viewing remains fragmented. The theatre‑window pledge aims to address exhibitors’ fears, but rivals and some industry groups will probe whether those commitments are robust and enforceable. Legal teams and regulators will comb contracts, disclosure filings and timeline guarantees to see if the operational promises can be translated into binding remedies.
Operational realities behind the headlines
Antitrust reviews and contractual deadlines shape how companies sequence theatrical, PVOD and streaming releases. Studios and streamers now routinely design multi‑window strategies to satisfy partners and regulators: negotiating window lengths and revenue splits, documenting terms for compliance, and tracking performance across platforms. Sarandos’s presentations repeatedly emphasized that Netflix wants predictable mechanics for distribution — both to placate partners and to reduce the risk of future litigation.
What to watch next
Expect more filings, public statements from exhibition chains and formal regulatory inquiries. Industry groups will assess whether Netflix’s pledges are more than window dressing and whether remedies will be needed to secure approval. If regulators or stakeholders remain unconvinced, conditions could be attached to any deal or the transaction could be blocked. But the real test will be whether those assurances survive legal scrutiny and can be written into enforceable commitments that satisfy regulators, exhibitors and rival studios.