Disney CEO Bob Iger declined to take a formal position on whether he is team Netflix or Paramount in the battle for control of Warner Bros. Discovery.
But when asked directly about the feud in an interview on CNBC on Thursday, the executive had a lot to say about what exactly regulators should be looking at and specifically questioned whether the former’s $82.7 billion deal would give it “pricing leverage over the consumer.”
“If I were a regulator looking at this combination, I’d look at a few things. First of all, I would look at what the impact is on the consumer,” Iger said. “Will one company end up with pricing leverage that might be considered a negative or damaging to the consumer, and with a significant amount of streaming subscriptions across the world? Does that ultimately give Netflix pricing leverage over the consumer, that it might not necessarily be healthy?”
“Additionally, I’d look at what the impact might be on what I’ll call the creative community, but also on the ecosystem of television and films, particularly motion pictures that these movie theaters, which obviously run our films worldwide operate with relatively thin margins, and they require, not only volume, but they require interaction with these films and these movie companies that give them the ability to monetize successfully,” he continued. “That’s a very, very important global business. We’ve been certainly participating in it in a very big way, we’ve had 33 $1 billion films in the last 20 years. So we’re mindful of protecting the health of that business. It’s very important to what I’ll call the media ecosystem globally.”
When asked whether he and Disney “make that case to regulators at all in terms of this process?”, Iger replied: “We haven’t determined whether we’ll take a position or not. … I was suggesting what regulators should be looking at.”
Iger was also asked if he views Netflix as a more serious competitor if it prevails in acquiring Warner Bros., to which he said: “No, I’d rather not say anything more than I’ve said.”
More to come…
