Inside the Capitol Building on Tuesday during Ted Sarandos’ appearance before the U.S. Senate’s antitrust subcommittee sat the Monopoly man, complete with a white mustache, top hat and red bowtie. The message, shared by some consumers and large swaths of Hollywood, to lawmakers was unmistakable: Netflix is poised to become an entertainment behemoth if it’s allowed to complete a $82.7 billion deal for Warner Bros. and HBO.
Just ahead of him was a cadre of Warner Bros. Discovery executives and lawyers in attendance to observe Sarandos’ testimony on the impact of the merger. The battle for the company will almost surely be fought in court, but the hearing turned into something of a legal session, with both Democratic and Republican senators pressing the executive on finer points of the acquisition as they relate to antitrust laws. Of specific interest was the market…
