If the vote looks close, Paramount would be expected to raise their bid to cover that cost.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000119312525... 8.3(a)
"Only we have sufficiently greased the current government to get this deal done"
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/25/trump-pushed-paramount-reviv...
The wild move for Ellison would be to bid for one of Trump’s crypto projects if the shareholder vote looks like it could fail.
[1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/netflixs-sarandos-w...
Honestly would rather have the Warner Bros content over there than on Netflix.
It frequently crashes after displaying ads, forcing me to re-open the app and watch ads again.
When watching ads does succeed (all 3 minutes of them…) and playback of my show begins, it shows the enormous pause button, the giant fade-to-black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and covers up the subtitles, as though I had pressed ‘Play’.
And trying to pause requires you to press the pause button TWICE.
I tried to play a series, but instead of starting from the last-played episode + 1, it always plays the most recent episode since it’s a rewatch. This happened every time until I got caught up.
So I strongly disagree. If only to be able to watch all of this content without all of frustrating design flaws.
EDIT: They also end each episode with 2-3 minutes of ads. So you had to exit the show, then re-enter to not get hit with two ad breaks in a row.
My parents pay over $300/mo for an Xfinity bundle. It includes everything (phone, internet, and all streaming services on one bill)
The paramount+ app on the Xfinity box took TEN MINUTES to load a show. This is after crashing three times back to the logo.
Xfinity warns that it’s a 3P app and they aren’t responsible for it but it should be criminal to take the money and subject elderly people to this under spec hardware. Even live sports will pause and stutter.
The latter leaves behind “sports and news television brands around the world including CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S., and Discovery, top free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital products such as the profitable Discovery+ streaming service and Bleacher Report (B/R)” [3]. (Paramount is effectively bidding $5.9bn for these assets.)
Note that Zaslav, Warner’s CEO, is a prominent donor to Democrats [4], as is Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder [5]. (Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO with Greg Peters, is mixed, leaning Dem [6]. No clue on the latter.) Ellison is a staunch Trump ally. The partisan tinge will be difficult to ignore.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/media/paramount-makes-hostile-t...
[2] https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-to-acquire-warner-...
[3] https://www.wbd.com/news/warner-bros-discovery-separate-two-...
[4] https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=david+...
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/reed-hastings...
[6] https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Ted+Sa...
The second best outcome would be the cartoon villain Larry not getting what he wants.
I think a big copyright holders in a strange way actually don't want a repeat of cable. They want all content to be exclusive by default to their own streaming service.