Disney CEO Bob Iger has commented on the continuing battle between Netflix and Paramount over who will own Warner Bros, according to Deadline.
Although Disney CEO Bob Iger is focused on the outcome of the streaming wars, he declined to publicly state whether he prefers David Ellison’s Paramount or Netflix (led by Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters) to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Deadline says that the Disney boss made it clear that he has specific concerns and a defined perspective on the situation.
“It’s nice to be an observer and not a participant in this,” In a joint interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Iger weighed in on Disney’s $1 billion investment and licensing agreement with the tech company via Deadline. “In effect, the position that we’re taking is kind of looking at what we did and now looking at what others have determined they must do in order to succeed.”
Drawing on his experience, the CEO, who is slated to step down from Disney next year, referenced the impact of Disney’s own $71.3 billion acquisition of most of Fox in 2019–a deal that resulted in significant debt and financial strain, particularly when the pandemic forced theme park closures, according to Deadline.
In the highly competitive media environment of 2025, marked by Netflix’s roughly $83 billion bid for David Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) assets and David Ellison’s $108 billion hostile takeover offer for the entire company, Iger views the current merger situation as fundamentally different, especially for Disney+, via Deadline.
“I think if I were a regulator looking at this combination, I’d look at a few things,” he said Thursday morning, according to Deadline.
Deadline says Iger expanded on his side of this while joining the business channel remotely, saying, “First of all, I would look at what the impact is on the consumer. You know, will one company end up with pricing leverage that might be considered a negative or damaging to the consumer, and with a significant amount of streaming subscriptions across the world, really does that ultimately give Netflix pricing leverage over the consumer that it might not necessarily be healthy?”
He continued, “Additionally, I’d look at what the impact might be on what I’ll call the creative community, but also on the ecosystem of television and films, particularly motion pictures. These movie theaters, which obviously run our films worldwide, operate with relatively thin margins, and they require not only volume, but they require interaction with these films and these movie companies that give them the ability to monetize successfully. That’s a very, very important global business. And I think it’s … we’ve been certainly participating in it in a very big way. We’ve got $33 billion in films in the last 20 years, and you know, we so we’re mindful of protecting the health of that business. It’s very important to what I’ll call the media media ecosystem globally.”
Despite all the speculation, the savvy Bob Iger chose not to influence the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding process, allowing Paramount and Netflix to proceed into what is likely to be another round of escalating offers and potential scrutiny from the current administration, according to Deadline.