Caroline Hyde

The reporting overnight was really focused on the coalition that David Ellison has pulled together for the financing.

And part of that includes people that have proximity to the administration, Jared Kushner and his private equity firm being the easiest example here.

Just reflect on what you know of both CEOs in the competition between them, but also David Ellison's ability here to manage that relationship with the White House, if there is one.

Well, look, I think one of the reasons that Netflix prevailed in the initial auction was that you put Ted Sarandos in a room with the Warner Brothers Discovery Board and leadership, and he is charming and charismatic and is generally very good in those situations, right?

It's one of the reasons that he is Netflix's primary person when it comes to

you know, wooing talent.

David Ellison has a little bit less experience with that, right?

He's younger, he is very amiable, but he doesn't have, he's not kind of like oozing the charm in the same way that Ted is.

We've now entered a different phase of this to your point where a lot of it is more about who you know and their proximity to people in positions of power.

That's one area where Ted Sarandos is still very strong, but he comes generally from the Democratic side of the political aisle.

And so Netflix is having to kind of find the people who can help them get in from the Trump administration.

To your point, David Ellison, in part because of his father, Larry, and then also the various financiers he has, he has a lot of different ways to access the president.

Now, of course, all of this is moot or should be moot if the board decides one way or the other.

But, you know, times are different now, I guess.

Yeah.

Times are different, but let's just go back to cold hard cash here, because this really comes down to how much the investors are going to think the cable networks are worth, right?

That's a big part of it, yeah.

I mean, the fundamental breakdown between what Paramount thinks of the state of play and what Warner Brothers Discovery thinks of the state of play is the value of the cable networks and the importance of cash.

Paramount's bid is all cash.

Netflix's bid is primarily cash, but not all cash.