Netflix Warner Bros. Monopoly Will Kill Jobs, Cinema – The Monday AM Quickie 12/8/25
I had the pleasure of seeing drummer Savannah Harris play live this weekend and she was incredible. Here’s a duet she did with bass genius Christian McBride a few months ago. - Whitney
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THE BIG NEWS
Netflix Warner Bros. Monopoly Will Kill Jobs, Cinema
Unions across the film industry and theaters across the country are demanding the federal government halt Netflix’s bid to buy Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion, which will create a massive media monopoly, slash workers’ pay, and cut US and Canadian box office revenue by 25 percent, the Los Angeles Times and New York Times reported. The Writers Guild of America, which ground Hollywood to a halt with a strike in 2023, said in a statement that the deal must be stopped:
“The world’s largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent. The outcome would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers, and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers. Industry workers along with the public are already impacted by only a few powerful companies maintaining tight control over what consumers can watch on television, on streaming, and in theaters. This merger must be blocked.”
Netflix announced the terms of the deal Friday. Warner Bros. will sell its studio, HBO, and the streaming site HBO Max to Netflix; it will spin off its cable networks, including CNN, as a separate company. The consolidation will mean fewer films in theaters, which are already struggling to survive. As The American Prospect’s David Dayen put it:
“The only part of the rationale Netflix gives for this merger that rings true is ‘More value for shareholders.’ Fewer streaming options, or a streaming landscape where two of the three largest outlets have the same corporate parent, likely means a continuation of the price hikes that we’re already seeing. Meanwhile, fewer bidders will likely put downward pressure on contracts and rates. So Hollywood talent will be paid less and customers will pay more.”
The deal needs approval by the US government, which appears to be in the bag. Last month, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos met with Trump at the White House to discuss the Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. auction, according to Bloomberg and The Hollywood Reporter. “Sarandos left with the impression that Netflix wouldn’t face immediate opposition from the White House, contrary to the claims of his rival bidder, Paramount Skydance Corp.,” Bloomberg reported.
News outlets noted that Paramount, which triggered the auction of Warner Bros., could still launch a hostile bid. They also noted that officials in Europe must approve the deal, where antitrust experts expect it “to face scrutiny.”
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
CNBC, CNN Betting App Deal Allows Wagers on Gaza Genocide
The betting app Kalshi has new partnerships with CNN and CNBC to incorporate its predictions into their news coverage, Truthout reported. CNN “will run live odds on world events where its viewers can gamble on them in real time on their smartphones” and CNBC “will incorporate exclusive Kalshi predictions market data” into its programs starting next year. Per Truthout:
“What are these events that viewers will be able to bet on? Some are seemingly harmless enough: who will win an upcoming election, the weather in Chicago, the federal government’s jobs numbers, or what will be said on Kroger’s next earnings call. But many offerings are on life and death issues that will, as a matter of course, reduce these issues to just another chip on a roulette table for Western audiences increasingly isolated from the violence and suffering their governments inflict on the global south. Take, for example, one recent Kalshi betting market that allowed people to bet on whether Palestinians in Gaza would suffer mass starvation.
“Will the IPC classify Gaza as experiencing famine this year?” read the wager from this past summer. The bet was eventually settled in the affirmative after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) did indeed declare famine in Gaza on Aug. 22. The more overtly cynical Polymarket, a rival of Kalshi that’s backed by right-wing multibillionaire Peter Thiel, allows for even more obscene wagering, permitting users to bet on whether Palestinians will be ethnically cleansed. “Gaza mass population relocation in 2025?” reads one of its many Gaza-related betting markets. You can also bet on when Israel will bomb Gaza, bomb the West Bank, or annex either.”
Serial Killer Hegseth Says Trump Can Do Whatever He Wants
The alcoholic former Fox News employee Peter Brian Hegseth, who is the secretary of defense, said Saturday that Trump may use military action “as he sees fit,” so murdering people on boats doesn’t violate international law, the Guardian reported. Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, Hegseth repeated without proof the regime’s claim that the maritime murder spree in the Caribbean and Pacific oceans is protecting Americans from drug runners. They’ve murdered nearly 90 people in 22 strikes, according to the NYT death tracker, including one instance in which Hegseth reportedly told the military to “kill everybody,” prompting the commander overseeing the operation to drop a second bomb on two survivors. Hegseth claims he never said that, nor did he see the survivors because he didn’t “stick around for the hour or two hours” after the first strike. Hegseth refused to give a straight answer when asked Saturday if the Pentagon would release video of that strike. “We’re reviewing the process,” he said, “and we’ll see.” Ok! I believe you! Sir! Anyway, Democrats are demanding he resign, according to the Guardian. “The New Democrat Coalition, the largest Democratic caucus in the House, called Hegseth ‘incompetent, reckless, and a threat to the lives of the men and women who serve in the armed forces.’ The coalition chair, Brad Schneider, and national security working group chair, Gil Cisneros, accused the defense secretary of lying, deflecting and scapegoating subordinates while refusing to take accountability.”
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- Corrupt Border ‘Tsar’ Supports Targeting Somali Immigrants Tom Homan said he was “not aware what the president was thinking” when he called immigrants from Somalia “garbage” and wants them kicked out of the country but that he agrees “with 100 percent what he’s doing.” via Politico.
- Regime Pens New National Security Plan to Befriend Russia Moscow’s approval of the plan “came as Russian missile, drone and shelling attacks overnight and Sunday killed at least four people in Ukraine, after US and Ukrainian officials wrapped up a third day of talks aimed at ending the war.” via the AP.
- Sudan is Starving “At least 21.2 million people – roughly 45% of Sudan’s population – are now facing high levels of acute food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the internationally recognized system for assessing famine and food insecurity.” via NBC News.
- Child Death on the Rise Globally Thanks to funding cuts to international aid programs, 12 million more children under the age of 5 years old could die in the next two decades, according to a new report by the Gates Foundation. via the Washington Post.
SOME NUMBER
75,000
That’s how many people with zero criminal histories the Trump regime has arrested in its immigrant terror campaign, more than a third of the 220,000 people ICE agents have arrested between Jan. 20 and Oct. 15.
ON THE SHOW TODAY
12/8: Sam and Emma are in the studio today, and their guest is Ben Freeman, director of democratizing foreign policy at the Quincy Institute. He’ll discuss his new book, Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home, co-authored with William Hartung.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
The Obamacare Boiler Room | Maureen Tkacik | TMR
Single payer now.
AOC IS DOING A POLITICS???
Good. Play to win.
PARTING WORDS
“I asked Karoline to be godmother over my only sister. … I made a mistake there, in trusting. … Why they’re creating this narrative is beyond my wildest imagination.”
-- Bruna Ferreira, mother of the nephew of Trump flack Karoline Leavitt, speaking from a detention center in Louisiana. Ferreira told the Washington Post that she’s baffled by her treatment and “recounted all the ways she has tried to maintain a friendly relationship” with Leavitt’s family after she split up with her brother; she said it’s “insulting to sit in orange prison scrubs facing possible removal to Brazil after spending most of her life in the United States while the Trump administration paints her as a criminal.” Ferreira came to the US from Brazil in 1998, when she was six, and was protected under DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
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