27 February 2026
If you are covering the news that Netflix has walked away from the deal for Warner Bros, with Paramount set to buy the company, please find below a comment from Ben Barringer, head of technology research at Quilter Cheviot:
“The news that Netflix has walked away from the Warner Bros deal probably means it is a good outcome for everyone. Paramount never gave up in its pursuit for the company and as such Netflix has shown good discipline to walk away when the stakes clearly kept rising. Netflix arguably didn’t need this deal so it is good to see it can now focus on doing what it does best – content creation, user engagement and pricing. That overhang leaving the company can only be a good thing.
“For Paramount it has got the asset it always wanted and now probably feels like it is in a position to compete with Disney for that second spot behind Netflix when it comes to streamers. However, it has saddled itself with a lot of debt to get to this point and that will need to be paid off at some point – a fact Netflix was likely more than aware of. Meanwhile, for Warner Bros, it has managed to extract a huge amount of value from what was supposedly a depreciating asset.
“Ultimately, this outcome probably doesn’t shake the media industry out as much as if Netflix had been successful here. Yes, it creates a new mega streamer in whatever Paramount-Warner Bros becomes, but Netflix has eyes on other competitors. YouTube remains the biggest threat to Netflix’s dominance, and with this saga now over, it can focus on keeping its place at the top of the streaming tree.”
