Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav presented an upbeat take on the company’s new mega-merger with Netflix during a Friday all-hands with employees.
“This is a big day for Warner Bros.,” Zaslav said at a company global town hall, a recording of which was obtained by Business Insider.
Netflix plans to buy the Warner Bros. studio and streaming assets — which include Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max — in an industry-shaking $72 billion deal, the companies announced on Friday. WBD’s TV networks like CNN and TNT will be part of a spinoff in mid-2026, as the media conglomerate had originally planned.
WBD’s town hall on Friday afternoon at 1:30 pm ET seemed designed to answer employees’ questions and assuage potential fears about the Netflix deal. Zaslav also sent a memo to staffers, several of whom told BI they were worried about their job security as the company undergoes another major deal. That’s especially true because Netflix has its own top-tier tech that could render some of WBD’s obsolete.
“The intention is, that they want to keep most people,” Zaslav said of Netflix on the call.
Netflix said Friday it expected $2 billion to $3 billion in savings from the deal, a signal that there would likely be layoffs.
Zaslav suggested HBO Max would continue to operate after the Netflix deal closes.
“HBO Max will stay,” Zaslav said. “So anybody that has Netflix and has HBO Max will have a better experience. For people that only want HBO Max, they’ll be able to get it.”
A person familiar with Netflix’s thinking said that for the foreseeable future, HBO Max and Netflix would continue to operate as separate brands and services.
WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, who will lead Discovery Global after it’s spun off from the main company, said on the call that while the WBD as the world knows it would come to an end, he’s excited for the future.
“It’s an emotional day, I think, for all of us,” Wiedenfels said.
What WBD execs said about the split, bidding war, and sale
Early on the call, Zaslav acknowledged that WBD and its employees had gone through a slew of changes since he engineered a merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery that closed in 2022.
“In the end, we’ve gotten a lot more right than we’ve gotten wrong,” Zaslav said.
WBD’s stock has more than doubled to nearly $26 per share since news of Paramount’s interest in buying it broke in mid-September. However, WBD shares began trading at $24.08 in April 2022 and closed at $12.54 before acquisition rumors heated up.
The WBD CEO reiterated on the call that the company had planned to split itself before Paramount expressed its interest with an unsolicited offer. Zaslav said that, as a public company, it was executives’ duties to get the best possible offer.
“Our No. 1 focus is to drive shareholder value,” Zaslav said.
As Netflix, Paramount, and Comcast put forth offers, Zaslav said that the bidding war got noisy.
“It was more public than we would have liked,” Zaslav said of the bidding process.
WBD employees should be flattered by the interest from Netflix and other companies, Zaslav said.
“They wanted to figure out how to get into business with all of you,” Zaslav said of WBD’s suitors. He also said there may be more noise ahead, so “put your seatbelts on.”
In the end, WBD executives told employees that they took the best offer on the table.
“Netflix is an exceptional company,” Zaslav said. “I think it has a great, sustainable future.”
As Netflix incorporates HBO Max content, Zaslav said that “more people will be getting nourished” by HBO and Warner Bros. content.
WBD executives expressed confidence that the Netflix deal would close, though the companies have said that they think it will take 12 to 18 months.
“We’re confident in receiving regulatory approvals for the transaction, but the process is going to take some time,” said Priya Aiyar, WBD’s chief legal officer.
Netflix execs also shared their views on the deal
After announcing the blockbuster deal on Friday, Netflix also moved to answer questions from Wall Street analysts and investors.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged on a call with analysts that big deals are out of character for the company.
“I know some of you’re surprised that we’re making this acquisition, and I certainly understand why,” Sarandos said. “Over the years, we have been known to be builders, not buyers.”
But Sarandos and his counterpart, co-CEO Greg Peters, said the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal is a win for investors of both companies, TV fans, and the entertainment industry.
Peters said on the call that “this acquisition will allow us to significantly expand our production capacity in the United States and keep investing in original content over the long term. That means more opportunities for creative talent; it means more jobs created across the entire entertainment industry.”
Some media analysts see a tough road ahead. Ben Swinburne of Morgan Stanley told clients last month that Netflix had “perhaps the toughest regulatory path” among the suitors for WBD’s assets.
Though Netflix said it would still release Warner Bros. movies in theaters, the movie theater trade group Cinema United came out swinging against the deal. The bigger question, however, is what President Donald Trump and his administration think.
