“Watch Out, Netflix”: Overseas Analysts Weigh In On Complexities Of Streamer’s Mega-Deal For Warner Bros. Discovery

“Watch Out, Netflix”: Overseas Analysts Weigh In On Complexities Of Streamer’s Mega-Deal For Warner Bros. Discovery

Jesse Whittock

Fri, December 5, 2025 at 7:48 AM EST

4 min read

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The combination of Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is drawing the attention of analysts around the world – and there are several big question marks around the implications.

François Godard, Media and Telecoms Analyst at Enders Analysis, provided a stark warning about the deal, which has been confirmed in the past few minutes and will see Netflix purchasing the Hollywood studio behind the likes of Succession and the Harry Potter films for a total enterprise value of $82.7B.

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“My first reaction is, watch out, Netflix,” he said. “The merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery destroyed value, and the risk is that this new deal will also produce a result smaller than the addition of the parts. HBO, the most brilliant TV creative house survived Zaslav, but will it die under Netflix?”

Guy Bisson, Executive Director of Ampere Analysis, took a more positive position as he called the deal “big news, but not unexpected” news.

“It was clear to me from what Ted Sarandos said at the last quarterly results that WBD was a priority target for Netflix,” added Bisson. “It makes a lot of sense and Netflix has been evolving strongly in the direction of a vertically integrated studio operation for several years. This deal takes it to the next level with a suite of IP it would take decades to build on its own, and it won’t have gone unnoticed that HBO content performs extremely well on Netflix.”

Strategic complications

Jack Davison, Executive Vice President at UK-based analyst 3Vision, said there were numerous strategic complications to the deal, with Netflix broadly avoiding theatrical distribution where possible and Warner Bros.’s business model still very much tied to it. Similarly, TV distributors and film sellers will be wondering what happens to their agreements with Netflix and HBO Max.

“This opens up loads of questions about how Netflix works with the IP and catalog they acquire, in terms of theatrical strategy for movies – does it maintain its limited interest here? – and any third-party activity with everything else,” said Davison. “Will everything end up solely on Netflix? There will be a lot of global video service providers wondering what happens next for their proposition as there will be implications for a lot of them.”

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For what it’s worth, Netflix said it will “maintain Warner Bros.’ current operations” in the official deal announcement.

Bisson suggested HBO Max could be sold to another runner in the WBD race, Comcast. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Comcast lined up to take that on,” he said, as “it would give the company its missing global streamer footprint in one shot.”

The deal has come amid the global rollout of HBO Max over this past year. Just this week, WBD announced 2026 launches in the key European territories of Germany, Italy and the UK. In a big week for the streamer, several program announcements have also been made and a second trailer for Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms dropped to much fanfare.

However, there are questions whether Netflix would – and even could – continue with HBO Max should a deal complete. Together, they would hold a hugely dominant subscriber position, as they currently have combined subscriber base of around 450 million. That’s likely to be an antitrust issue.

“HBO Max, due to launch next quarter in the UK, Germany and Italy, would already be scheduled to close,” said Godard, who also pointed to other WBD assets that would face uncertain futures.

“As far as I see, linear channels are out of the deal and so TNT in the UK and Eurosport elsewhere in Europe would remain in whatever legacy corporate vehicle would be left after the sale to Netflix,” he said. “I don’t think that alone, without the backing of a streamer, TNT and Europsort have a sustainable future.”

Godard speculated that if this scenario played out, Paramount could swoop to acquire TNT, though this would mean buying out BT, which owns 50%, and a new distribution arrangement with Sky.

Godard added the linear Discovery assets in Europe could be of interest to existing broadcasters, with Discovery Italy – the largest Discovery operation in the region – of potential interest to Comcast-owned Sky Italia.

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