Netflix defends Warner Bros bid as shares drop on tepid results

By Zaheer Kachwala

Jan 21 (Reuters) - "YouTube is not conscionable user-generated contented and feline videos anymore," Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said connected Tuesday.

Making a compelling lawsuit for wherefore the streaming elephantine wanted Warner Bros Discovery's workplace and streaming assets, Sarandos noted however tech giants specified ​as Alphabet's YouTube had changed what tv viewing meant and forced Netflix to alteration tack to support up.

"TV is not what we grew ‌up connected ... Oscars and the NFL are connected YouTube. Networks are simulcasting the Super Bowl connected linear TV and streaming. Amazon owns MGM. Apple is competing for Emmys and Oscars, and ‌Instagram is coming next," helium said.

"They are TV. So we each vie with them successful each dimension, for talent, for advertisement dollars, for subscription dollars, and for each forms of content."

Sarandos and his co-CEO Greg Peters spent a ample information of the post-earnings telephone talking effusively astir however beardown and complementary Warner Bros' services were, a crisp alteration from the long-held institution credo: build, don't buy.

Having offered $82.7 cardinal successful currency to bargain Warner Bros' movie and tv studios, its extended contented room and ⁠major amusement franchises - including "Game of Thrones" and "Harry Potter" - Netflix ‌is embroiled successful a bidding warfare with Paramount Skydance.

Netflix's co-CEOs had not thought they would marque an connection for the assets erstwhile they archetypal started the owed diligence process connected Warner Bros, they said. "When we got into the hood, determination ‍were respective things we saw that were conscionable truly exciting," Peters said.

"We person often successful our Netflix past debated gathering a theatrical business, but we were engaged investing successful different areas, and it ne'er became our priority. But present with Warner Bros, they bring a mature, well-run theatrical concern with astonishing films, and we're ace excited astir that ​addition," helium said, successful a reversal of Netflix's erstwhile presumption that theaters were an outdated exemplary with audiences preferring stay-at-home streaming.

"And past you get to ‌the streaming broadside of things, HBO. It is an astonishing brand. It says prestige TV is amended than astir anything. Customers cognize it. They emotion it. They cognize what it means," Peters said, adding that Warner's tv workplace was besides a steadfast concern and complemented Netflix's own, expanding its accumulation capability.

INVESTORS ARE NOT CONVINCED

With the costly woody hanging implicit its head, Netflix delivered a tepid gross bushed for what is usually 1 of its strongest quarters, and forecast arsenic dull prospects for the caller year. The company's banal fell astir 6% premarket connected Wednesday.