The Rest Is Entertainment - Netflix & Warner Bros: The Biggest Deal In Hollywood History

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Why has Netflix made the decision to buy Warner Bros. for an eye watering $72bn? Will Trump approve the deal? Is this the end of cinema for good? Netflix are planning to pay over $70 billion to buy the film, TV and streaming business of Warner Bros. - One of Hollywood's oldest studios. What does this mean for the future of streaming, cinemas, and all of us watching at home? In a special episode, focused solely on the deal, we answer all of this and more - plus answer why Marina was the only person to correctly predict the deal? The Rest Is Entertainment Live: General sale open on Thursday 11th December at 10am. Find out more at southbankcentre.co.uk Whether you’re hosting or guesting this Christmas, you need the UK’s best mobile network and broadband technology, only from EE. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Charlie Rodwell and James Clayden Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is presented by E.E. Marina, are you hosting or guesting for Christmas this year? Normally, every other year I am a very grateful guest, but I'm now a slightly trepidacious host. Yes, it is me in the apron having a meltdown over all the cooking. No, I don't think I'll have a meltdown. It's a lot, isn't it? Yeah. But you have to just keep saying to yourself, it's just a big chicken. Just a big chicken.

It's just a really big chicken. It's just a really enormous chicken. We are also hosting this year, looking forward to it very much. If you are hosting, and E.E. has the best broadband technology. If you are guesting, then E.E has the best mobile technology. And my goodness, you need it at Christmas, right? Yes, the third babysitter, the distractor. Just when the family walk into the house is, hello grandma, hello granddad. What's the Wi-Fi password?

I might need that. Get the best connectivity for your home and your phone with EE. And if you're guesting, lucky you, E.E has the best mobile network to keep you. you connected to music, maps and backseat streaming for the kids when you're traveling. Search E.E. Does More. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Restis Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you?

I'm very well. If you had a nice week. I've had a busy week. The Christmas onslaught is most certainly upon us. Is that your new movie, The Christmas Enslore? Right. What are we going to talk about this week, Richard? We're only going to talk about one thing this week, but it's a big thing, possibly the biggest... Luckily. Yeah, isn't it just? We did talk a tiny thing this week. Imagine it was in the new episode of Celebrity Gladiators and we had to do 50 minutes on it.

Actually, I could do that. We could do that. Yeah, we could actually. That was a bad example. We are going to talk about possibly the biggest deal in the history of Hollywood. Netflix is agreeing to buy Warner Brothers. We're going to talk about what it means for consumers and what it means for the industry as well and a few little kind of just behind the scenes stuff behind that deal.

And obviously, this deal is in no way signed off. will take a very long time to push through if it goes through indeed even during all our recordings today paramount have made a higher offer for $30 a share and I don't think that's going to be the last we hear of this one so the situation is very much developing but talking of old school television what's on our what's on our uh desks here the double issue of the radio times but thank you radio times for sending it to us that is not an ad no this is not sponsored content but it's an annual tradition for me and I am thrilled that I have it because last time I had to go to lots of different news agents

to find this for you, Richard, and this time we got sent it. We got sent it, so, you know, you'll have to think of something else as my present. Yeah. Netflix. What does it all mean? Okay, so surprise news on Friday, to some extent to surprise. Not surprise to you, because you were just about the only person who predicted it. Everyone was saying that David and Larry Ellison were going to buy Warner Brothers, and you said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Netflix enter into this race and win it.

We knew that Netflix was slightly in the race because they'd only just revealed it, but one mega, mega power player thought that Netflix would get it. And I think that power player is a very sort of... And her name is Marina Hyde. If only. What is the deal? They've paid $72 billion for it, or they've agreed it. It's almost all cash.

Yeah, they're taking on 10 billion, 10 billion of debt as well, which is why their headline figure is 82 billion, but really they're paying 72. But it's basically 10 times the amount of the deal to buy Paramount, which we spend. spent the earlier parts of this year, talking about, speaking of Paramount, Paramount Skydance, who is owned by David Ellison and his dad, the richest man in the world, Larry Ellison. Now, they've lost out because they really wanted it, as long with Comcast, who were also part of the bidding process. I also made a cheeky late bid. Yeah, and you also made a cheeky late, which was underreported.

Yes, it was. But by the way, Comcast might still be in it because they haven't taken the cable channels, which are part of this, but we'll get to that in a minute. Okay, so essentially the biggest streamer in the US is going to take over the third biggest, which is HBO Max, and various other parts of the Warner's Entertainment Empire, which we'll talk about. As for why, it's like a one-time opportunity, unless Disney was for sale, this is it. This is the biggest prestige thing Netflix could do. And also, I do think people sort of slightly underestimate Netflix's existence within the market as a sort of reseller.

of course we know they make lots of things but given how much they have they are sort of a reseller of other content they license things so much you know you can watch suits on Netflix for instance or all these other shows they are a reseller to some extent of other content

but this gives them a really significant content machine and to some extent therefore de-risks that reseller model that they're involved in we know the channels business is dying maybe these cable channels that they've kind of hived off they'll go maybe they'll go with Comcast

It makes sense for them to put things together, like tobacco or anything like that. The channel's business is dying slower than you'd think. When you say they're buying a lot of content, Warner Brothers, if you buy Warner Brothers and they're buying Warner Brothers Studios, which is the film, and the TV side of it, you are getting Friends, you're getting Big Bang Theory, you're getting Harry Potter, you're getting Game of Thrones, you're getting the DC Universe. You're getting HBO Max and the linear HBO. They're getting a gaming vertical, which they've never really had.

The TV production business is actually very significant because, Warner's makes TV for lots of different people, not just for sort of, you know, HP or whatever. And they don't have to have the cable networks, which make obviously zero sense with Netflix's business. So they will hive those off. They're essentially buying the studio lot. With the iconic water tower, you may know the pictures of the W. But, you know, so that's a big sort of piece of real estate. All of that.

They're buying the catalogue. They are buying. The film library. The film library. And they're buying HBO max. And IP rights to some of the biggest things, many of which are still live and recently extended and can be spun off into all sorts of different things. I mean, when you say it like that,

we should, everyone should have made a bid. Yeah, I know. Why didn't we buy? Yeah. Mad, mad. The hurdles, well, let's just, I don't know if we can get over those, but whether it will go through, there are obviously significant regulatory hurdles.

We should say that this deal has gone down poorly in Hollywood. Because there are regulatory hurdles. There's obviously antitrust, you know, as I say, if it's the biggest stream and taking over the third biggest, it obviously reduces competition. There's the Trump of it all. He wanted the Ellisons to have it because the Ellisons have shown themselves to be almost willing to be apparently some former state-sponsored media to the extent, as we discussed last week, of even agreeing to release Russia for, which is above and beyond. But, you know, he wants people to be Maga or certainly not to be woke, as it were.

He hates Disney, Trump. And they've got themselves into all sorts of difficulties because they're perceived. to have gone far too the wrong way as far as he's concerned. Netflix is just sort of perceived as to be not MAGA enough. Elon Musk, I saw, has recently tried to sort of say, oh, you should all cancel Netflix because it's too woke or whatever it is. That hasn't kind of got huge traction. And the EU.

He said we should cancel. I noticed this week. Yes. I mean, they haven't been particularly MAGA. And, you know, Trump wants fielding, all of those sorts of things. Ted Sarandos, who's one of the co-ceos of Netflix, but the one we always talk about, we will have a couple of mentions of Greg Peters,

the one we don't in this. particular item. So Sarah and us went to the Oval Office last week to talk about this. And Trump has said, I saw Trump said maybe on Sunday night, we're recording this on Monday morning. He said on Sunday night. I don't know. That's going to be... Well, he said, I will definitely be getting involved. Yeah. Oh, no. In some ways, this deal has united against it. Trump, the unions, Bernie Sanders. All of Hollywood. All of Hollywood. All the guilds, by the way. Well, not all the guilds, but the writers, the director, and the screen actors will have their negotiations in the middle of this because a deal like

this takes forever to go through. It will not go through in 20, 26. It will probably be in the first quarter of 2027. 18 months or so, probably. They take a long time to go through these things. And by the way, well, maybe the Ellisons aren't even out of it and we can talk about that. So the guilds and the actors and what have you are against it for the same reason why you are always against this sort of thing, which is suddenly there are fewer customers. And the more power that's in the hands of one customer means terms of trade. are very different. If I'm an independent TV producer and by extension all the people who work for me on a project actors, all the trades, everything like that, if I've got 10 different places

to take something, everybody I pitch to knows that. They know that there's lots of other people that I can go to and therefore when we negotiate when I've got something they want, I have something. The fewer customers there are, if say Netflix and Warner Brothers becomes this sort of mega corporation and one of the few games in town, they are much more able to say take it or leave it. It's just absolute classic. The fewer customers there are, the harder it is to be a seller. It's already sort of, you can see going out as a Republican line, oh, this is reducing competition. You can be sure they wouldn't have minded that if that was something, if it was somebody else and they'd been told to like Netflix, but anyway. Well, actually,

let's talk a little bit more about the specifics of the deal at the start. Now, was this just a masterstroke by Netflix, or did the Ellison's mess this up? I think, to some extent, yes. Netflix have really maxed out in cash, as you say. Something like $63 billion of the deal is cash, and they've borrowed that. Larry Ellison, the Logan Royal in all of this, is a richest man in the world or whatever or the second richest, it just bobs up and down that number, doesn't it?

He was talking about, you know, their patch working together like a Middle East fund and Apollo and all these other things. It's like maybe that sounds less good. But also, they're offering sort of tech to Hollywood. That's their offer because of Oracle. They could go nuclear. The Ellison can now say, this is a complete stitch out. And in fact, they are very angry.

They could say, this is a complete stitch up. You know, you've got whatever it is, $27, $28 a share. We're going to offer $35 a share. Your board has lied to you, you know, Warners or whoever. They haven't looked after you. The chair of the board of Warners is a guy called John Malone. Now, he is so interesting. People don't really talk that much in all of these kind of big things about it.

You talk about Ted Sarandos and you talk about the Ellison's or whatever. John Malone, I think, is really the sort of puppet master in all of this. He's at the top of the top of the top, John Malone. It's interesting. He doesn't have sort of control of anything, really, but he is just plugged in in every situation. He is the chairman and the largest voting shareholder in various things, one of which is warners. But he's a very, very clear strategic thinker. And he's interesting because he's not sort of totally without vanity.

because none of them are, but he is not one of those people who feels like I have to acquire and acquire and acquire. In fact, you know, in the case of lots of things he's done, they're separating all sorts of aspects of them. And you can see that's what's happened with some, and he's not involved in ITV, but look what happened with ITV. They're separating bits of the company all over. This is the big trend in these media companies, separating bits of their company to see

which could be valued, who could be most valuable to someone else as a piece of their jigsaw. And this is the trend that you're seeing. If you're buying companies, you buy a company that is strong in an area that you're weak. And different bits of different companies are strengths to different companies. So there are different businesses. So there are companies for whom buying the broadcast business of Warner's and those cable channels actually consolidate something that they've already got that they're weak in. And it happens when you break up any big company. You will sell off different bits to people who need those bits and will pay a premium for them, which is what's happening here.

Rather than to retain the sort of vanity of thinking you have to be one enormous thing, which is a very sort of clear way of thinking strategically in the modern landscape. And to be clear, what Netflix are, have a weakness in, is library, depth of library, and content production. Production capabilities. And warners are incredibly strong in both of those. So it fits perfectly for Netflix. And in a funny kind of way, works quite nicely. If you want to keep the Warner Brothers brand going, which one presumes that they do,

this is a way perhaps to protect Warner Brothers for the next 50 years as well as a major entity in Hollywood. Yeah, and do you think that look at already what's happened with the Ellison's and Paramount, David Ellison can come back and say, well, you know, my dad's the richest guy in the world. It's like, yeah, okay, well, I'm not getting your dad or you. If it's Logan, fine, let's talk. If it's Kendall, I don't know. Are you a serious person? You have not yet proved yourself to be serious people. And maybe he will and maybe he'll be one of those great sort of second-gen kind of power players like.

Rupert Murdoch himself or Michael Corleone or one of the some of those people and maybe he won't and also Paramount Skydance has a market cap of something like 14 billion Netflix has 425 billion market cap I mean if I were the person charged with deciding who Warner should go to I think I would probably feel a little bit safer with someone like Ted Sarandos than with Larry Ellison yeah that's a bigger risk yeah you always have to say in anything like this the losses are there will be huge layoffs, whatever people say. The HBO of it all is very interesting. There will be huge kind of cultural clashes really between the sort of Netflix way of doing things.

And HBO who's sort of like to set themselves up as the anti-netflix, you know, don't worry. If you're making television for us, you don't have to expect that someone is just second-screening it, so you can't even have a B-plot. You know, they're not those people. They think they're very different. And also, you know, I feel sorry for them because I've talked to a lot of HBO people over in my time. They had been through three different owners in a decade, and now they've got a fourth, and you've got to do all the cultural reorientation all over again. So I think that is hard.

And we can talk about how that will exist, but it's not going to exist as a separate streaming service once the deal goes through. Do you know, I think it definitely will, because there is an argument that it could still. There is an argument that what Netflix are doing here is not consolidation, it's not bringing everything inside the castle. it's diversification. It's understanding that there are other markets to be in and there are other ways of doing business that Netflix don't do. And so buying Warner Brothers, keeping HBO Max as its own standalone thing, keeping a lot of those brands, the standalones, still selling friends off to different places rather than keeping it all in house. There's an argument that Netflix is future-proofing itself by buying a business which it then allows to continue to run in the same way that it's doing now. but you would say that the HBO maxes of this world will go and will all come under the same banner. I will say that they will monetise it, but they will put it.

It will be like a tile on your home screen, on your Netflix home screen, and it will be as so often, much of what this Netflix disrupted, the old TV or the old cable market, it tries to come and resemble it. It's like, oh, there'll be a premium thing, will there be? I can pay for HBO, just like you used to do on cable. But I would say this, which is, you know, Netflix has 300 million subscribers, HBO has 120 million. So Netflix is much bigger, but HBO, that's still a big business. If you bundle those together, you are not going to be able to charge as much as you would for Netflix and HBO by themselves.

I mean, no one is going to swallow that extra cost for one subscription to something called Netflix. I wouldn't have thought, whereas if they are standalone, and there are, you know, in terms of scale, in terms of, you know, the back room, there's all sorts of economies that. they can make. But in terms of two big brands that are both making a lot of money and both making a lot of prestige television, you happen to own them both. It's like there's lots of brands out there in the shops which are owned by the same person, but you wouldn't know they look like they're competing. There's an argument to say that HBO Mats continues on its way, continues with an amazing management team, which it does have, which has incredible relationships with lots of showrunners who might be more reluctant to go to Netflix. There's an argument that

says we just keep that running as it is. And then every now and again, like something will move from BBC 2 to BBC 1. You go, oh, actually, we will. We will have that for Netflix. There is an argument for that. I actually think that the way things are going, if you look at, maybe this is like the start of their kind of Amazon channels. Amazon don't do lots of things, but increasingly people use it as a kind of home screen and all the different apps. They access through Amazon. So Amazon aggregates all of those things. And they make a lot of money. simply by virtue that people are coming into them via prime or whatever. Those channels, that would be CNN, TNT, the movie channel, you've got Discovery, you've got HGTV where I always watch hometown.

So, you know, there's business there, but it's not necessarily Netflix's business. I think that it's unlikely that Netflix will want to just have this separate thing. I think they will want to use it as a premium tier. And I think they will want to have all different kinds of stratification of pricing models. much like cable, much like old TV used to be. The main thing that people are most initially impressingly worried about is cinema. Warner's who are committed to releasing movies in cinemas and so on. And Netflix, we know what they think about movies in cinemas.

And it's interesting, it's Ted Serendor said in a rather sort of tired investors' call after they've done this deal, it's not like we have this opposition to movies and theatres. Well, it is actually. But he also said, and I think this is far more significant, what he said is, Windows will evolve to be consumer-friendly. So a window is how long, in the case of a theatrical release window, how long a movie will be in the cinema before it is available somewhere else. Now, normally the next window is P-Vodd is paid, you know, you can have rented at home,

but you pay for it and then streaming. But except in the case of Netflix, where everything goes straight to the service. And they have these tiny windows for awards plays. You know, I was able to see the Thursday Murder Club for a lot of, a week in that I'm able to see in the cinemas before it went on to Netflix. I saw Jay Kenney last week, which I enjoyed very much. Yeah, really. Yeah, me too.

That's immediately on Netflix. Well, actually, I think it had a week because it's the one of their awards plays. So they have to get it out there in cinemas. The new knives out, you can see for a week. And so Ted historically either wanted no window at all or the shortest possible window. I mean, think what he said earlier this year, we covered this. People were asking about the struggling box office because it was in that really bad quarter. Well, what does that say? What's the consumer trying to tell us that they'd like to watch movies at home? Thank you.

The studios in the theatres are duking it out of trying to preserve this 45-day window. That's just completely out of step with the consumer experience of just loving a movie. And then he said, you know, everyone wants to say, or I want to make movies. I want people to cry together in the theatre. Well, it's an outdated concept. Okay. Ted Sarandos does not care about a supposed random, you know, cinema lover in Notionalville, USA. he cares about the people who pay him subscriptions for his service, he cares about the subscribers

he would like to win, and he cares about both of those groups of people, ideally paying him more for that service. Again, counterpoint, and that idea that this is not just consolidation, it's diversification, and that Ted Serendos has been around long enough to know that he's in a wonderful business at the moment, but wonderful businesses never, you know, blockbuster video used to be a wonderful business. There's an argument for saying, I wouldn't mind having a movie arm, which, every now and again when I have a meeting with a particularly recalcitrant director

who, for whatever reason, wants a movie to be in a cinema, that he can say, great, we'll do that through Warner's. We will send us an absolutely separate deal. It's just another negotiating thing that he can use. At the moment, he can't do that, at the moment he doesn't have that power, that capability. But if I were him and I had a big movie studio and I felt there were 300, million dollars to be made theatrically by having a 45-day window on three projects a year that then come to Netflix, maybe I would do that.

There's an argument that you don't even need that long, and that actually all the big returns in movies come in week one and two, and then actually then they become more valuable when they go into the service or whatever. I had a slightly you idea at the weekend. They've got a long time to think before this goes through, and they think, okay, if we are doing all sorts of different stratified payment models and. you can have a premium thing which involves Max. Could you not say certain levels of subscribers you can go and see our movies for free,

but you can see them theatrically? Don't forget cinemas are food courts. They make their money off food retail. Could you not say we want to keep those theatres open? It won't be all of them, but we want to keep them open in a different way. You can pay for a way of watching that means that you can go and see our movies because there are many more movies. Netflix puts, I don't know, three in a year or something like that.

As we talked in our Christmas gift guide about Curzon membership, which is where you pay your money and you can watch stuff on the Curzon website or you can watch stuff in the cinemas. But I do just think that there's money left on the table. If, for example, you look at the money that Disney had just made out of Zootopia, particularly in China. I mean, an insane amount of money. You know, the sort of money that even, you know, Ted Serendos has got to sit back and go, okay, that feels like something I should be doing something different with, not just opening it from. a week and then putting it on Netflix. You know, I think that there's an argument for saying Netflix are doing this deal because it gives them more options as to how to release content and how to deal with creatives and

how to deal with talent. That's all I'm saying in that regard is that I don't think they will necessarily shut down every way of doing business that Warner Brothers are currently involved in. I think they might be able to explore, as you've said before, you know, Netflix have essentially they take in every trick of old linear TV which is oh we're going to have adverts now we're going to schedule things now we're going to have live sports events now

they have a track record for saying oh I'll tell you what we'll do why don't we open this big movie in the cinemas for four weeks yeah they often say they'll never do something until they do and they're on how many areas until it makes a load of money for them and that's what I think about this deal

I think as a diversification deal which is their understanding that there might be different ways of making money in the next 15 years. I will hope that would be the case. I think it doesn't look great for cinema unless people start to radically rethink things. I'm holding my thoughts.

You hold all of your thoughts and let us go to a break. More Netflix after this. This episode is brought to you by Disney Plus. Christmas is a time to tell stories. It's part of the festive tradition and with Disney Plus you can enjoy the work of master storytellers

across a huge range of genres. You were fan of the classic Christmas movies. Oh, you're a fan of the classic Christmas movies. You know I am. Okay. I love the Christmas movie. Oh, my God. We both love these so much.

There's certain ones that I literally have to watch every single year. Home Alone, one, and two. That might be controversial to some, but it's not. Not to me. No, Miracle on 34th Street. Oh, yes, please. Always. It's a wonderful life.

Muppet Christmas Carol is non-negotiable. It's simply non-negotiable. You know that bit in between Christmas and New Year? It's actually the perfect time to watch the big blockbusters or hit shows. like the new season of Percy Jackson. Between Christmas and New Year, it's got various names. What are you doing? What are you streaming? What are you watching? Well, I actually will catch up on family things that, for whatever reason, I didn't see at the cinema.

So I will this year watch Lilo and Stitch, which I didn't see, which was massive. And I will watch Elio because I want to watch, I'm a Pixar completest, and I want to watch everything that they do. Whatever's on your list this Christmas, you can be sure a lifetime of great stories awaits on Disney Plus. 18 and over, subscription required. Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindest community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at Canada's Wonderland.com.

Welcome back, everybody. We are talking about the biggest deal in the history of Hollywood, Netflix purchase of Warner Brothers. Now, before the break, what are we discussing? I think we should also acknowledge the possibility, because it is generally the prevalent possibility. Integrating mega acquisitions goes wrong more often than it goes right. It's possible they've bitten off more than they can chew. there is a conspiracy theory that they've done this on purpose they know it's not going to go through but they're just going to tie everyone up in nightmares for two years that's rubbish I do not I don't anyone I've spoken to who works at a power playing level in this

says who on earth would put themselves through that this deal makes too much sense for both sides for it to be a smokescreen and also the business is changing so fast that nobody wants to be caught up in some kind of weird kind of conspiracy theory thing for two years just for the I mean that's just nonsense okay But nonetheless, they may have bitten off more than they can chew.

It's very hard to integrate things at this scale. It's not like they've bought a telecoms company. You're buying a talent business. You're buying a people's business. And people always say, oh, you know, you're dealing with relationships and you're dealing with kind of fragile relationships. And there have been a number of huge failures, AOL Time Warner, being just one of them. Which is why Greg Peters, the co-CEOO, we don't really talk about, said almost quite snippily,

we understand these assets after it had been announced that this deal was theirs. We understand these assets. What they're trying to say is, yeah, yeah, we know it always goes wrong this sort of thing, like with big media companies once they start to get so big that they're, you know, because Netflix wasn't like this. No. You know, that big joke that everyone's been reporting 10 years ago, the guy who ran the parent company said, do I worry about Netflix?

No, it's like, you know, is the Albanian army going to take over the world? Yeah. And actually. Jeff Bukes, that was. Jeff Beeks, yeah. And actually, yes, the Albanian army has taken over the world and or at least half of it and it's versus YouTube and we can talk about that.

But at the time, Netflix, they gave everybody who worked for them at army caps as if to say, yeah, they've matured as a media company. But Greg Peters is saying, we understand these assets. Well, they all say that. The history of these kind of huge emanates is actually listed with probably more failures than big successes. On a very minor level, say you're Mike White.

He makes the White Lotus for HBO Max. Now, Mike White can take whatever he does wherever he wants because of his track record. So there's a reason he's gone to HBO Max and there's a reason he stayed with HBO Max and he has relationships with the HBO Max people. He has some power over how his stuff is shown. You know, if he wants it scheduled, it's scheduled. If he wants it binge watch, it's binge watch. You know, that's where Mike White is. Suddenly you go, oh, okay, I am now not working for.

HBO Max. I'm working for Netflix. And that's an option that was on the table for him for the last five years. He could have done that before if he wanted to do it. He chose to do something else, which works for HBO Max. And for every Mike White, there are hundreds of other people who have got deals with other people and people who do business in a certain way are now going to have to do business in a different way. And there will be clashes at every single junction. There will be clashes. But as we said at the start of this, There are fewer and fewer people to go, you know, some people still think that Netflix is, to a degree, a tech company. They're regarded as a sort of outsider disruptor of traditional Hollywood and entertainment industry. A deliverer of content rather than a maker, although they're making more and more and more. And they've said we want to make more and more and more. It's the reason this made sense. And lots of, you know, the Duffer brothers have just, who are coming off their biggest hit Netflix, have decided to go to Paramount. But yeah, you're going to a tech company because they've been bought now.

So they're going there. you've got other filmmakers will go to Paramount because they're being promised all sorts of things but don't kid yourself that you're not working for a tech company that you're doing everyone is it's getting smaller and smaller you know how many people are making shows for Apple for Amazon for you know let dare I say it some of the worst companies in the world but they're able to sort of overlook it

but it's becoming very very difficult not to look at the fact that they're all sorts of working for tech companies now and whether or not they like to admit it that's what's happening Yes, no one, it's not the golden age of Hollywood where all the studios are run by producers and directors and actors and, you know, it's all about creative vision. Who are all monsters of a different order. Of course, I mean, they were, they were, I mean, that's when we say, it's a real shame what's happened to Hollywood. You go, well, yeah, I mean, listen, we've always, we've, you know, we've both worked in the business a long time. It's always, it's always been, you know, it's always had its issues.

I mean, and someone who likes to read back right to the very start, you know, but I'd rather be working. A different stripe of monster. Yeah. I'd rather be working for a monstrous creative than a monstrous tech bro, I think. For definite. For definite. Yeah. But it's harder and harder not to work for a monstrous tech bro because that's kind of

where everything is going. I mean, it's hard to think, obviously, there is Disney. Yeah. Lionsgate is very much on the market and someone will take that. Maybe the Ellison's will take that. I don't know. But things are getting smaller and smaller. But the World of Prestige TV.

still very powerful there's still a lot of it about we're still making a lot of very very good television so however we paint the picture of who's owning our media a lot of good stuff is getting through okay there's a lot of good movies out there a lot of certainly a lot of good television these these days and that feels like that's not a given for the next 20 years you know our culture is moving towards YouTube and TikTok and vertical dramas and all of these things and you know, there are barriers to entry to making content are dropping as we speak and AI will drop them even further. There's an argument that says we do need to, as an industry, protect prestige television and this certainly builds a fence around prestige television

again for maybe another 15, 20 years, this scale. And both of these companies do have a track record of making really, really good stuff. You know, we can we can call them monsters all we like. but there's a lot of good content out there. Again, as you know, I like to play devil's advocate. And it's possible that jobs that would be going anyway, there might be some that would be protected by protecting the world of prestige television and protected by protecting studios and making TV

and having, you know, just having a big company with a lot of money whose prime aim is to spend it on content. That's a lovely idea, but I just don't, And I do think that they will, I do think that I understand a lot of what you're saying. But the recent mergers of this year alone, I think will pull out, I think people are thinking $6 billion out of that economy. And that is just a huge amount of jobs. But is that not going anyway.

Yes, I think it is. Yes, it's a great sea change. And everyone's got to retrain as something completely different. And they're not going to be in the entertainment industry. But what I'm saying is that, you know, six billion can come out of the, business that we are both in, you know, 50 billion could come out of it, is the truth. I mean, there's sort of no end to what could come out of it. We don't have any right to this industry existing, particularly if people want something

different. And anything that suggests that people do want high end, high budget, high quality, drama, scripted, unscripted, there's, it's possible that without this sort of merger, actually the picture gets worse and worse and worse. There's no returning to where we were in the 1990s. Even in the 90s, everyone was like, I wish it was like the 1980s. You know, and then the 2000s,

I wish it was like the 90s. There's no going back to where we were. You know, the world has completely changed. For me, it's a lot better that they got it than the Ellison's. Well, that's what I think. And the option of them remaining as a standalone, some people will say, or it could have happened. But let's just be honest.

share prices taken down to a third of what it was when David Zazlough took his position. He'll be making some more hundreds of millions out of this as well. I mean, that is nice work if you can get it, being David Zazlav. I must say, he's the CEO of Warner. And apparently we'll have a job, of course, seems to have arranged some sort of parachute job once it's taken over by Netflix. Well, that's, I'm reading that wonderful book Barbarians at the gate at the moment, which is about the time the world's biggest leverage buyout of Nabisco. You don't need to know what it's about.

But so much of it is the executives of the companies involved, just saying, I absolutely understand that, you know, the difference between this being $18 billion and $15 billion. It's important that I get like $12 million. Just if I do that, then I'm on your side. Can we talk about the me of it all? Yeah. I know.

But people do. Yeah. But I do think, you know, is it bad for the industry? Well, everything currently is bad for the industry. So everything that is happening is bad for the industry. Is there someone who could buy Warner Brothers that would be good for the industry, i.e. more jobs are created. I don't think so.

Is there someone who could buy Warner Brothers that could decimate the industry? Yes. Who are Netflix? Netflix are the people who, if anyone can consolidate what we currently have and just ballwalk it as much as we possibly can, then it feels like it's Netflix. And, you know, my view is that they will use the different bits of Warner Brothers to actually extend the range of their business practices rather than bring everything that Warner Brothers does inside one machine, which is Netflix, because that's just, that's not good business. The whole point is you have to respond, you have to, you have to have some flexibility in your business plans and buying Warner Brothers gives them a couple of options they currently don't have.

I do think everyone is trying to be the everything corporation nowadays and everything is becoming consolidated in the hands of fewer and fewer players most of whom are sort of tech related I do really hope that they find a way of supporting cinema because I do believe that cinema to some extent is a live communal experience even though you're watching a recorded thing You know, look at, I mean, obviously there was a massive horror opening this weekend, five nights at Freddy's too. People want to see that in the cinema.

Young people want to see it. People want to go and have that experience. And in a time where people were talking about live, to some extent, cinema is a version of that. It's a communal experience. And I do believe that it is monetisable for Netflix. I think in the world where AI becomes bigger and bigger, the world where people go out and sit next to someone else gets bigger and bigger, that's always been my view. And even if it's just for PR, it's such an easy win for Netflix. They bought this big, big thing, which can make money.

Find a way of using that to support cinema. Yeah. You know, that feels so doable to me. It feels like it's not going to cost you anything. It's not because, you know, you're not going to have double-digit growth your entire life of a corporation. Everybody knows that. So you can say, oh, the, our thing is you don't go to the cinema, you stay at home.

Our thing is, oh, with Barbenheimer had happened on Netflix, it would be just as big, which of course it wouldn't have done. You can say it all you like, but there comes a point where you think, no, no, no, hold on, we, we, because they do support creatives at Netflix. You know, they really, really do, and they do put a lot of money into content, and they do employ a lot of people in our industry. There's one simple little thing, just throw us a bone, which is put some of that enthusiasm and some of that money behind genuine theatrical windows, genuine movies that come out. in theatres, or think about theatres if you said, as a slightly different thing, as a slightly different space, as a slightly different place to do things. And that feels like everyone wins. Speaking of live events, Richard, I hope you're enjoying this segue.

That's good. Yeah, nice. It means a lot when you compliment me on my professionalism. There are tickets that you can buy for The Rest is Fest, which is the goal hangers takeover of the South Bank next September, early next September, 4th of the 6th of September. remember we are doing an event we are we might even do two but the second one hasn't been announced yet okay but that'll be with everyone that's a different thing that's okay yeah but this are main events the one that will be the most fun well we don't know the other one might be fun and also this one might not be a real boar fest yeah might not or ted sarandos might go

guys i don't actually don't want you to do this live we're just going to stream this on Netflix I'm never going to get over our roast of ted sarandos when we thought he'd gone home he was in the room. Yeah, we did. Oh my God. That was mortifying. Yeah. Ted enjoyed the roast.

Yeah. That's what I thought you said. He'd gone home. We had loads of jokes about Ted Serenderson. So he's not in the room. He said, no, no, no. He went straight after his session. He was third row just absolutely staring us out.

But we didn't notice it. Okay. Sorry, to get back to the point. The rest is first. Tickets are available for members and they go on general sale on Thursday, but you can still get kind of exclusive. early access and I think quite a lot of them have gone so if you are a member and you want to come

please do the rest isentatement.com you can sign up there otherwise general sale on Thursday. On Thursday it'd be fun and it'll be like a live version of the podcast but we're doing a few sort of some interactive things as well it'll be a lark that's for sure and maybe we'll do another event like a crossover event with some of the other podcast but who knows because listen like a lab accident it's yet

my entire life is people saying So you know you weren't supposed to announce that? And I'm like, God, I mean, really? I think people will be okay. Right. Assuming that isn't all edited out, do join us. Marina, any recommendations? Well, don't I say I have a little bit of homework to advise.

We are interviewing Simon Cowell about all sorts of things and his new show. And that new show comes out on December 10, so that is, Wednesday of this week and on December of the 18th next week our interview with him will come out so if you get a chance to watch it it's called the next act Simon Cowell the next act it's on remind me where it's on it's on Netflix I've heard of them and anyway if you want to have a little look at that it might be helpful background for it's what will I think it's a fascinating bit of modern television there are lots of things I would like to ask him about the making of that, which I will ask him. Oh, yes. I will be

asking them. So anyway, that's that. What about you, Richard? Any recommendations? I have to say, just get the Radio Times double issue, don't you think? Because there's so much amazing TV. It just, you know, it's just, it takes us all back to. Not all of us. I mean, it takes us elderly people back. Me and you. Wow, just one subject across a whole podcast, but a big one. I mean, it really is a big one. Yeah. We have a Q&A as normal on Thursday we also have a bonus episode this week which is all about pantomime oh no it doesn't okay add free listening to all of our episodes early access and you get to all those bonus episodes as well and you can sign up for that at the rest is entertainment dot com and we will see you on

Thursday see on Thursday Thank you.