Spanish
New York.- Netflix co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos sent a letter to employees to reassure them about the possible acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), assuring that there will be no studio closures or overlapping functions.
In the document, obtained today by Bloomberg, Peters and Sarandos argue that the operation seeks to "strengthen one of Hollywood's most iconic studios, support employment and guarantee a solid future for film and television production." Furthermore, they reaffirm their commitment to maintaining WBD's theatrical releases.
Paramount and Netflix, two giants of the American audiovisual industry, are in conflict in the attempt to acquire the emblematic company WBD.
WBD reached an agreement with Netflix to sell the company for $82.7 billion, including debt, after which Paramount entered the scene with a hostile takeover bid for $108 billion.
The fight between the two giants has opened the door to greater business concentration in a sector already dominated in the US by a handful of large groups that bring together cinema, media, television and 'streaming'. The merger has generated union and political criticism. On the other hand, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) denounced that the operation could violate antitrust laws, and senators such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Richard Blumenthal have warned the Department of Justice that the new company would have "the capacity to increase television prices in a context of inflation".
Peters and Sarandos claim that the combination of Netflix and WBD would have a lower audience share than YouTube or a possible merger between Paramount and WBD would generate.
