Ted Sarandos Responds to Donald Trump’s Call to Fire Susan Rice

Ted Sarandos has dismissed Donald Trump‘s social media demand that Netflix fire board member Susan Rice, saying the streamer’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery is a enterprise matter and never a political one.

“He likes to do a lot of things on social media,” the Netflix co-CEO and chief content officer told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program Monday morning when host Amol Rajan requested him to reply to the president’s intervention. Sarandos added: “This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal. This deal is run by the Department of Justice in the U.S. and regulators throughout Europe and around the world.”

The remarks got here after Trump on Sunday reshared a submit by MAGA influencer Laura Loomer calling on him to kill the Netflix-Warner deal, including that “Netflix should fire racist Trump deranged Susan Rice immediately, or pay the consequences.” Rice, a former Obama administration diplomat, presently sits on the Netflix board.

Sarandos was talking in London the morning after the BAFTA Film Awards, which he attended, and ahead of a go to to the National Film and Television School, the place Netflix is asserting a recent donation. The streamer has round 320 million subscribers globally, with almost 20 million in the U.Ok. alone.

The interview got here at a pivotal second in the contest for Warner Bros. Discovery. Netflix tabled an $83 billion bid for the company’s streaming belongings on Dec. 5. Three days later, Paramount — led by David Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison — launched a hostile rival bid for the whole company at $108 billion. The Warner Bros. Discovery board has repeatedly said its choice for the Netflix provide, however gave Paramount until later Monday to desk a best and final bid.

Sarandos made the case for the Netflix deal in blunt phrases. “Our deal is growth,” he said, noting the company has spent $6 billion on authentic programming in the U.Ok. since 2020 and created 50,000 jobs there. He characterised the Paramount method as “the classic horizontal media mergers that are always bad for consumers, always bad for creators,” warning that if Paramount’s bid succeeded, Hollywood’s 5 major studios could be decreased to 4. He also famous that Paramount has dedicated to reducing $6 billion from the enterprise instantly after a deal closes, with a further $16 billion in cuts wanted to delever. “You look at that and think, ‘Wow, this industry will be much smaller under that ownership than it would be under Netflix ownership,’” he said.

Asked by Rajan about the argument he made to Trump for the Netflix deal, Sarandos pointed to its progress credentials. “This is a vertical merger. We’re buying assets that we don’t currently have — a movie studio and a distribution entity,” he said, emphasizing that Netflix could be including to the market relatively than shrinking it.

He also weighed in on the function of sovereign wealth funds in the Paramount consortium, which beforehand included Jared Kushner. Asked whether or not it was fallacious for international governments to maintain a monetary stake in news networks, Sarandos said: “I think it’s a bad idea, typically.” He famous that some of the Gulf states concerned “are not very big on the First Amendment” and said the suggestion that they’d exercise no editorial affect over TGB and CBS “seems very odd to me, with the level of investment that we’re talking about.”

On filmmaker James Cameron, who wrote to the chair of the Senate antitrust subcommittee warning that a Netflix acquisition could be “disastrous for the theatrical motion picture business,” Sarandos said he discovered the intervention “disingenuous.” He said he personally met with Cameron on Dec. 20 and mentioned Netflix’s dedication to 45-day theatrical exclusivity for Warner Bros. movies. “We spent five minutes of our conversation on that, and we talked mostly about these glasses that he’s developing for Meta to watch movies at home,” Sarandos said. He argued that the common Netflix member watches seven films a month, in contrast with the common American’s two cinema visits a 12 months. “If more people see movies, the better, deeper, richer relationship they have with movies,” he said. “I don’t lose any business to the movie theaters.”

Sarandos pushed again on claims that Netflix crowds out homegrown British tv, noting the streamer presently has 59 productions under method in the U.Ok., of which only round 17 are non-British tasks. Asked pointedly whether or not Netflix would ever have made ITV’s “Mr. Bates vs the Post Office,” he replied without hesitation: “I would have made it in a heartbeat. I’m shocked that people use that example.”

On a parliamentary committee proposal that major streamers contribute 5% of their U.Ok. subscriber income to a cultural fund for British-focused drama, Sarandos was skeptical. “Incentive works much better than obligation,” he said, arguing that the U.Ok. had benefited drastically from manufacturing incentives and that including obligations may undermine those financial positive factors.

Sarandos recognized YouTube as a major competitive drive, noting the platform accounts for shut to 9% of all tv viewing time in the U.Ok., with 55% of YouTube watching now happening on TV units. “That’s a zero sum game — the time that you spend on a connected TV, if you’re watching one app, you’re not watching broadcast, you’re not watching BBC, you’re not watching ITV and you’re not watching any other streaming service, including Netflix,” he said, including that studios and broadcasters persevering with to provide YouTube with free programming while it grows at their expense struck him as counterproductive.

On podcasts, Sarandos described them as a pure evolution of the late-night chat present. “It’s the new generation of chat shows, where you don’t have to make one show that appeals to everybody,” he said, pointing to their decrease manufacturing prices and more specialised audiences as a part of a broader diversification of the leisure panorama.

Listen to Sarandos’ full interview on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” right here.