Netflix is Buying Warner Bros for $82.7 Billion

Netflix announced today that is going to try to buy Warner Bros. at a value of $82.7 billion.

So many mergers in our lifetime might not end up changing much of the way our lives operate, but this one feels like a big one that could. You have Netflix, a streaming media company that continues to post impressive quarters, attempting to buy one of the most iconic franchises in media history with an enormous catalog of content, all to form some kind of new mega-media empire. This is such a wild move and I have no idea how this will shake out.

As a part of this deal, Netflix will own HBO and HBO Max, their libraries will be more easily accessible between platforms, and Netflix members should have even more content to choose from. Netflix also plans to “optimize its plans for consumers, enhancing viewing options and expanding access to content.” So yeah, plans will change and we’ll just have to see where that pricing will end up. I think we can all guess.

The two companies would like to close the transaction in 12-18 months. They’ll need regulatory approvals, of course, but they’ll bend the knee to make that happen as every other major company has done over the past year.

// Netflix