Joe Flint

So they're taking their case to the Warner shareholders here and that they believe their deal has a better chance of passing from a regulatory standpoint.

Basically, that was, I mean, if they were already hostile, they've now turned it up to super hostile.

They've gone to 11.

So Paramount stock took a hit last Friday when it emerged that Netflix had been Warner's chosen partner.

I think because the street and everyone else felt that Paramount really needs Warner to scale up and be a competitor.

Otherwise, you're still the same old Paramount competitor.

So they really feel like they need these assets.

They will tell you that they feel like they will be a better steward for these assets than Netflix.

But that's really what's driving this, the old he who has the most toys wins.

Yeah, there's a few major antitrust concerns there.

The biggest thing that this will turn on for Netflix is how are we defining the streaming marketplace?

Netflix, when they put out their earnings letter every quarter, when Netflix does an earnings letter, they used to like to say that they don't just view their competitors as Disney+.

Fortnite is a competitor.

Sleep is a competitor.

Sleep is a competitor.

So they view anything as a competitor.

They would argue that the streaming market includes TikTok, includes Facebook with all their videos now, Instagram.

You can't just look at Netflix versus Disney+, versus Paramount+.

In fact, in that world, they argue that they actually, as a company, have a smaller market share of TV viewing than Paramount.

But what Paramount is going to argue and what the Justice Department will have to decide is whether that is just too broad a way to look at this marketplace.