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At this phase, conventional wisdom will tell you that the Trump Administration is probably not going to use the force of the government to shoot down Netflix’s effort to acquire the core studio and streaming assets of Warner Bros. Discovery. However, with South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott now signaling antitrust concerns in a letter to Trump’s regulators, according to Semafor, it’s now plausible to say there is real pushback. Semafor quotes the letter as saying there are “significant antitrust problems” with the deal, and that it harms “moviegoers, on-camera talent, writers, producers, and everyone who loves the entertainment industry.”Scott also reportedly expressed concerns about Netflix’s ease around price hikes and the deal’s potential negative impact on TV showrunners and movie theaters.
And for what it’s worth, Scott’s opposition sounds pretty full-throated: “The transaction warrants rigorous antitrust review under all applicable antitrust merger and monopolization laws and, to the extent appropriate, a lawsuit to block it,” Semafor quotes the letter as saying.Shortly after the terms of the deal were announced, Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, the head of the antitrust committee, said it “should send alarm to antitrust enforcers around the world.”Trump himself has said the deal “could be a problem.”Interestingly, Polymarket gives Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery a slightly better chance of succeeding by the end of 2027 than Netflix’s slightly smaller deal, which has been approved by the boards of both companies. So the fatal blow may not come from anything that happens in the Capitol. Then again, antitrust enforcement can mean a lot of things. There could be a lawsuit from the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission, or some kind of foot-dragging effort by regulators asking for divestitures or making other demands. Scrutiny from legislators like Scott is just one of many potential arrows in the quiver of this deal’s opponents.
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