How the Netflix-Warner Bros deal might touch India

The bigger impact of the deal is expected on the film production and theatre business if Netflix continues to drive its streaming-first strategy.

MUMBAI: When Netflix agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) television, film studio and streaming businesses at an enterprise value of nearly $82.7 billion, the American streaming service informed all its subscribers that the deal will close after all regulatory and shareholder approvals. It added that the entertainment service will offer Warner Bros. franchises such as Harry Potter, Friends, Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones and the DC Universe along with its own extensive portfolio. The mail had barely reached the subscribers when Paramount Skydance launched a hostile bid worth $108.4 billion for WBD.

“If Netflix acquires WBD, the HBO content may move to Netflix as the streaming company is not known to share or license its IPs,” said an executive of a media company.

We are yet to hear the last word on the eventual winner, but Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has expressed confidence in closing the deal.

In a tough media environment marked by steep decline in linear pay TV revenues, slowdown in streaming growth rates and an underwhelming film box office, only companies that can scale, have a diversified revenue stream and global reach can survive, entertainment sector analysts have said.

In India though, Netflix’s acquisition of WBD Intellectual Properties, film studio, premium TV channel HBO and streaming service HBO Max, may not be an immediate game changer as we are talking English language content which is consumed only by 10% of the market. Currently, JioHotstar is home to HBO content here.

“If Netflix acquires WBD, the HBO content may move to Netflix as the American streaming company is not known to share or license its IPs,” said an executive of a media company with interests in TV and streaming. “As of now there’s a 50:50 chance of the deal going through,” he said, declining to be named.

Even if JioHotstar loses the HBO content, it is unlikely to dent much of its claimed paid subscriber base of 300 million. At the most, JioHotstar may see a churn of 4-5 million subscribers as Indians consume content predominantly in Hindi and other regional languages. “English viewers are unlikely to drop the service as most such viewers have more than one subscription,” said a broadcast industry specialist. With WBD content, Netflix will become a must-have English service and may be able to improve its average revenue per user, but JioHotstar has sports, deep local content strategy and scale, he added.

A December 8 report by Elara Capital said that Netflix leads India’s SVoD (subscription-led video-on-demand) market with 25% share. JioHotstar is the market leader in AVoD (advertising-led video-on-demand) space outside of YouTube. “This deal further entrenches both players at scale, reinforcing their competitive strengths. It bolsters Netflix’s movie, IP and franchise development capabilities, accelerating India-based film production across OTT-first and theatrical formats,” noted Karan Taurani, executive vice president, Elara Capital.

However, Taurani said that JioHotstar will have to defend its leadership in the AVoD space against Netflix by retaining the cricket Indian Premier League’s digital rights post-2028. Netflix and JioHotstar are likely to dominate the India OTT landscape, limiting the ability of other OTTs to scale, he added. On Monday JioHotstar announced an investment of ₹4,000 crore over five years to boost the creative economy in the south.

The bigger impact of the deal is expected on the film production and theatre business if Netflix continues to drive its streaming-first strategy after acquiring WBD’s movie studio. Elara Capital said that Hollywood films contribute 15-20% to India’s gross box office collections. Though the share of WBD films here may be small, theatre revenues could be affected if Netflix reduces the release windows or tests OTT-first launches.

To be sure, OTT remains a price sensitive market in India ruled by mobile-first viewers, affordable subscription plans and hybrid SVoD and AVoD models. There’s poor growth in direct-to-consumer OTT subscriptions and very little coming from the telco bundles. Major chunk of advertising continues being wolfed by Google, Meta and the e-commerce and quick-commerce platforms. Hence, content budgets remain tight.

Yet content on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and other social platforms is booming and will multiply with help from AI. On the Netflix-WBD deal, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur posted on X: AI will allow sophisticated content to be created by individuals at a far lower cost than the corporations and be shared directly with other individuals via YouTube or other platforms…Since AI has lowered the entry bar to what was once high budget content, the gatekeepers of content are in serious trouble.