Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos spoke out for the first time since losing his bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
Sarandos didn’t mince words about the loss to Paramount in an interview with Lucas Shaw on Bloomberg.
During the Q&A, Shaw said Sarandos was “dealing with an unusual buyer.”
“Abnormal, yes, abnormal, unreasonable, whatever word you want to use,” Sarandos said. “It will be interesting to see the next steps. I have been on record many times over the last two weeks about what the future holds. I am confident that our future will not be affected in that way. In fact, it may turn out to be advantageous for us. But I hope for the sake of the industry that I am wrong.”
He also spoke about President Trump’s political pressure and whether he thinks it “scared” Warner Bros. shareholders.
“It’s much cheaper to make noise than to actually raise the bid,” Sarandos said. “So they tried that avenue first. Once it became clear that we weren’t in the CNN business, it became less interesting. He didn’t really care about our contract.”
Sarandos also discussed why Netflix ultimately decided to terminate the deal.
“We had a very narrow range of what we were willing to pay, so we came back with that offer when we closed this deal,” he said. “We didn’t move much from there, other than converting to cash to move the deal along more quickly. We were happy with where we went in, and we’re happy with where we went out. When we got the notice on Thursday, we knew right away that they had a better offer and details for that deal. We knew exactly what we were getting into.”
Read the full interview here.
