Paramount to Netflix: Your 'YouTube reason' to buy Warner Brothers is like Coca-Cola justifying it can buy Pepsi because ...

Netflix says it must acquire Warner Bros Discovery to compete with YouTube. In fact, YouTube has become a key player in Netflix‘s plans to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. As the streaming giant Netflix says that even if the company were to acquire Warner Bros., it would still be behind YouTube in terms of total viewing time as measured by Nielsen. Netflix’s Co-CEO Greg Peters brought up this point while speaking at UBS’ 2025 Global Media and Communications Conference in New York last week. Peters made the statement on the same day when Paramount filed its hostile bid. “We go from 8% of viewed hours today in the United States to 9%. We’re still behind YouTube at 13%,” Peters said, referring to what would happen if the company acquired HBO and HBO Max.

The reason Netflix co-CEO specifically pointed out, if Paramount acquired Warner Bros., their newly combined portion of US viewership would jump to 13.8% and that would put them above YouTube is to stress on the point that if Paramount, which accounted for 8.2% of November viewership, purchased all of Warner Bros. Discovery, it would account for 13.8% of all US viewership. That would put the combined companies ahead of both Netflix and YouTube. To sum up, Paramount buying Warner Bros. is a bigger anticompetitive threat than Netflix.


“We go from 8% of viewed hours today in the United States to 9%. We’re still behind YouTube at 13%,” he said. “We think that there’s a really strong fundamentals-based case here for why regulators should approve this deal,” Peters added.



In response to Netflix co-CEO's comment, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, compared the statement to Coca-Cola justifying a Pepsi purchase because Budweiser also makes beverages. Speaking to CNBC’s David Faber on "Squawk on the Street", Ellison said, "I’m sorry this is like following that analogy for a second, right? Okay, that’s like saying Coke can buy Pepsi, that they’re both beverages because Budweiser is a substitute for Coke. That’s not a realistic argument. Now let’s actually look at it from the talent community, the greatest showrunners in the world. David Benioff is not going to take the next Game of Thrones to basically TikTok or to Instagram. They’re going to take it to Netflix. They’re going to take it to Amazon. They’re going to take it to Apple, they’re going to take it to HBO Max. They’re going to take it to Paramount Plus. That’s not actually how the ecosystem works. If this deal is allowed to come to pass, it is anti-competitive, and it is a horrible deal for Hollywood. And as someone who spent the last 15 years of my life producing movies and television shows, this is an industry that I love, this is an existential moment for our business, and we believe that what we are offering is better for Hollywood. It’s better for the customers and it’s pro-competitive."

"And when you look at the consolidation of market share that would occur by combining Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, that is unprecedented market share. And so from that standpoint, we think that, that is deeply anticompetitive," he added. Talking numbers, Paramount CEO said, "We are trying to combine the number four streamer with the number five streamer. When you put Paramount and HBO Max together, you get round numbers, 200 million subscribers. That creates a streaming service that is competitive with Disney. When you put number one and number three together, you are handing Netflix unprecedented market power, which is anti-competitive in every single measure, every single metric you can measure. And we think that is bad. Again, it’s bad for the consumer. It’s bad for the creative community. This deal, if it is allowed to move forward, will actually be the death of the theatrical movie business in Hollywood. We’re sitting here today trying to save it."

Why analysts not convinced with Netflix's 'YouTube reasoning'

According to a report by Reuters, antitrust experts doubt regulators will buy Netflix argument. While Netflix insists the deal is needed to challenge Google's YouTube, which media analysis firm Nielsen ranks as America's most-watched TV distributor. However, attorneys quoted in the report say that the Justice Department is unlikely to see Netflix and YouTube as interchangeable rivals, given their different content, audiences and business models. "Netflix is trying to say it competes with YouTube because people only watch a certain amount of content a day," said Abiel Garcia, antitrust partner at Kesselman Brantly Stockinger. "That argument ultimately fails."

The DOJ is not likely to view those videos as a substitute for Netflix shows and movies, experts said. While companies often seek to defend their mergers by pointing to competition from a broad universe of established and emerging players, antitrust enforcers are experienced in finding the ways that mergers quash competition in distinct sub-markets.