{"id":1150,"date":"2025-12-06T17:57:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T17:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=1150"},"modified":"2025-12-06T17:57:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T17:57:33","slug":"former-amazon-exec-warns-netflix-wbd-deal-will-make-hollywood-a-system-that-circles-a-single-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=1150","title":{"rendered":"Former Amazon exec warns Netflix-WBD deal will make Hollywood ‘a system that circles a single sun’"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

A Netflix-Warner Bros. merger would risk a monopsony where a single buyer wields enormous control over the marketplace, the former head of Amazon Studios warned. <\/p>\n

\n

Roy Price, who is now chief executive of the studio International Art Machine, wrote in a New York Times<\/em> op-ed on Saturday that predictions of doom are nothing new in the film industry, pointing to the advent of TV, home video, streaming, and AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if Netflix acquires Warner Bros., this long-prophesied death may finally arrive, not in the sense that filmmaking will cease but in the sense that Hollywood will become a system that circles a single sun, materially changing its cultural output,\u201d he added. \u201cAll orbits\u2014every deal, every creative decision, every creative career\u2014will increasingly revolve around the gravitational mass and imprimatur of one entity.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be sure, Netflix has said Warner Bros. operations will continue, and the studio\u2019s films will still be released in theaters. Meanwhile, Warner\u2019s TV channels will be spun off via a separate company, though HBO will be included in Netflix.<\/p>\n

But Price said the danger \u201cis not annihilation but centralization,\u201d with the combined company accounting for an even bigger slice of overall content spending. <\/p>\n

A reduction in bidders also means less content will be produced, while a separate development culture, set of tastes, and risk tolerances will be sidelined, he predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Netflix merger with Warner Bros. would create a monopsony problem: too few buyers with too much bargaining power,\u201d Price explained. \u201cWriters, directors, actors, showrunners, puppeteers, visual effects artists\u2014all are suppliers. The fewer buyers competing to hire them, the lower their compensation and the narrower their opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such reasoning sank Penguin Random House\u2019s attempt to merge with Simon & Schuster that would\u2019ve created a book publisher with too much leverage over authors, he pointed out.<\/p>\n

Of course, the remaining players in Hollywood and content creation are giants in their own right as well. A KPMG survey of spending in 2024 put NBC Universal parent Comcast at the top with $37 billion, followed by Alphabet\u2019s YouTube ($32 billion), Disney ($28 billion), Amazon ($20 billion), Netflix ($17 billion) and Paramount ($15 billion). Comcast and Paramount also made bids for Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

Theater owners, producers and other creative workers have also voiced opposition to the deal, though famed director Bong Joon Ho doubted that the \u201ccinematic experience will disappear so easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the business impact of a Warner Bros. takeover, other opponents raised even weightier concerns.<\/p>\n

Oscar winner Jane Fonda sounded the alarm on a \u201cconstitutional crisis\u201d and demanded that the Justice Department not use its regulatory power to \u201cextract political concessions that influence content decisions or chill free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

For its part, the Trump administration views the deal with \u201cheavy skepticism,\u201d sources told CNBC. The merger is expected to face exceptional antitrust scrutiny, and Netflix\u2019s $5.8 billion breakup fee is among the biggest ever. <\/p>\n

On Wall Street, analysts see a tech angle in the merger, namely the importance of content to train and power the next generation of AI models that will shape the entertainment industry\u2019s future. <\/p>\n

The acquisition of Warner Bros. would help Netflix stand out in an AI future, Divyaunsh Divatia, research analyst at Janus Henderson Investors, said in a note on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re also levering up on premium entertainment at a time when competition on engagement from short form video is expected to intensify especially if AI models democratize video creation at an increasing rate,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Amazon #exec #warns #NetflixWBD #deal #Hollywood #system #circles #single #sun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Netflix-Warner Bros. merger … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[374,1044,110,446,1041,723,716,626,1042,1045,1046,1043,613],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}