In his pitch to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders to accept Paramount Skydance’s $108 billion hostile takeover bid, David Ellison has repeatedly argued that European regulators will never allow Netflix to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. In his Dec. 10 letter to WBD shareholders, Ellison said the Paramount buyout deal offers “a much shorter and more certain path to completion,” insisting that the European Commission and the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority would balk at allowing the world’s largest streamer to swallow one of its few global competitors.
Ellison’s argument hinges on Netflix’s dominance in Europe. With roughly 51 percent of the continent’s subscription video on-demand (SVOD) market, he characterizes Netflix’s move as “a blatant attempt to eliminate one of Netflix’s only viable international competitors in HBO Max.” He says EU regulators would reject Netflix’s preferred market definition — a broad “all internet-enabled video” category that lumps subscription streaming together with YouTube, TikTok and other platforms — and instead focus narrowly on SVOD, where Netflix’s share is most pronounced. In his telling, EU laws such as the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act were written “for a situation precisely like this.”
