The bidding war over Warner Bros. Discovery appears to have been won by Paramount. It has become a high stakes battle over shareholder value and rights, as well as the future of the U.S. movie industry in Hollywood. In the end, the storied studio is likely to go to the highest bidder. For a while, the WB board was pitted against the shareholders following last December’s hostile takeover bid by Paramount Skydance. And now there is absolute daylight between the two rivals. Big Tech Netflix is no longer willing to up the ante to buy Warner. Old Hollywood wins.

Paramount kept raising its offer, promising extra payments if the deal takes too long and even promised to cover a $2.8 billion fee Warner would owe Netflix if they were to walk away from that option. That pushed the Warner board over the edge. On. Feb. 26, they finally admitted the Paramount deal was better and safer for an antitrust probe, if and when it comes.

Paramount deal will likely come with less scrutiny

It came shortly after Netflix’s CEO Ted Sarandos traveled to Washington to better gauge the attitude inside the White House. This trip came shortly after President Donald Trump demanded Netflix kick ex-Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice from its board of directors, “or pay the consequences” for saying Democrats would hound corporations that “bend the knee to Trump” once in power. 

Netflix has around $9 billion in the bank and could have matched Paramount’s $31 per share offer. By way of their original agreement with Warner Bros, Netflix had the right to match Paramount’s offer. Why did they decline? Whether or not politics played a direct role, the trip underscored the reality that a........

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