Alarm grows in UK over Netflix takeover

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A number of leading media industry figures and politicians in the United Kingdom have become the latest prominent players to express concern over the proposed takeover of the Warner Bros Discovery entertainment and media group by streaming service Netflix.

Bloomberg reported on Monday that Netflix had agreed to a cash deal to buy the company, seeing off competition from Paramount Skydance Corp, for $83 billion. The deal was unanimously approved by the Warner Bros board and will now be put to the company's shareholders for a vote.

However, the Financial Times reported that a letter, whose signatories include three former British ministers for culture, media and sport, and the former director-general of the BBC, Tony Hall, has been sent to Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the Competition and Markets Authority, warning about the threat of the huge dominance this will give Netflix in the TV streaming market.

The FT quoted the letter as saying that the deal may lead to "a substantial lessening of competition with damaging consequences for consumers".

The potential effect on the streaming market, it said, could be "chilling … at a time when the British consumer can ill-afford more price increases, Netflix would possess an unprecedented ability to raise prices to access television and films".

Market dominance

These latest voices of skepticism join those already heard in Congress in the United States and in the European Union, who have also expressed concern about the market dominance that the deal would produce.

However, Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw said the European lobby in particular could end up having some influence on the final look of the deal.

"Paramount definitely saw itself as the only viable option at the start of the process … it was the only bidder interested in all of Warner Bros. That was a miscalculation," he wrote.

"Yet Paramount remains convinced that the Netflix deal will get blocked, whether by (US President Donald) Trump or in Europe. People with experience in Washington seem most worried about Netflix's chances in Europe and believe the company will have to divest some assets there."

One of Warner Bros Discovery's prime assets is HBO, the part of the company that has produced such international hit shows as Game of Thrones and Succession.

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said the HBO team will be retained, and he is optimistic that its future could be even bigger, for wider audiences.

"That HBO team is good at working with that talent and giving them the environment that they need to tell those amazing stories," he told tech industry news outlet Stratechery.

"And they get to do it under a great brand that speaks to the kind of program they're trying to make, and we're going to give them a bigger audience."

julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com