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00:00:19.700So Netflix, Warner, defend proposed deal in Senate hearing. This is a Wall Street Journal story. It got nasty very quick. Rob, if you want to go to the Josh Hawley clip before we go to the Ted Cruz one.
00:00:39.040Kosi or Ted Sarandas defended the streaming company's planned $72 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers and HBO Max at a Senate hearing Tuesday that occasionally grew contentious.
00:00:50.460The best part of this that I want you to watch is here with Josh Hawley.
00:00:55.760Josh Hawley pushes both of these guys and they couldn't answer a couple of the questions he asked. Go ahead, Rob.
00:01:02.520That so much of Netflix content for children promotes a transgender ideology. Almost half of your content for children. I'm talking about minor children now. I'm not talking about teenagers.
00:01:15.780Minor children promotes a transgender ideology agenda. I was just looking at the data here from your various series.
00:01:24.780And what concerns me is just two days ago, a jury in New York awarded a former transitioner $2 million because she said that her psychologists and others pressured her into, they pushed on her an ideology that proved to be extremely detrimental.
00:01:43.420I'm sure you know that in the U.K., the National Health Service in the U.K. has said that they're not going to perform transgender surgeries or any longer so-called gender-affirming care for minors, including in counseling, because it is so incredibly detrimental.
00:01:58.640Our own HHS has come forward with similar findings this past year, yet if you turn on Netflix, you'll find that an enormous amount, and I say this as a parent with three young children,
00:02:07.300an enormous amount of your children's programming has this ideology and agenda in it, is this an advocacy position for Netflix?
00:02:17.440Is this an ideological commitment you have? I mean, why is this?
00:02:21.520Generally, Netflix has no political agenda of any kind.
00:06:12.440They have no independence other than hating Donald Trump, which is why their viewership numbers have plummeted, because they don't actually report news.
00:06:20.780They instead engage in very biased propaganda.
00:06:23.920And I will say, the truest words you said a minute ago is when you said with respect to Mr. Sarandos, well, he and I see the world in very much the same way.
00:06:32.580That is exactly the problem, that in the world of journalism, it should not be propaganda.
00:06:39.660In the world of entertainment, there is a reason why entertainers who are even slightly right of center get blackballed in Hollywood.
00:07:32.220And I don't think the Federal Trade Commission has spoken.
00:07:35.580These are congressional hearings that are bringing things forward.
00:07:39.320And the Federal Trade Commission is going to be the one that has the final say.
00:07:43.700And we saw how the movement was so radical when Warsh was dropping.
00:07:49.940And then suddenly, one comment from the White House, boom, Warsh was the guy.
00:07:53.880And so right here, what you see, they are trying to convince Congress that, number one, this will not create too much market power when, in fact, it will create a streaming giant with over 30% market share of total streaming, number one.
00:08:10.120Number two, you have now price power over the consumers.
00:08:15.660And Netflix has been incrementally raising price.
00:08:18.040And the Federal Trade Commission's job is to ensure that there's competition in market so prices can be moderated through competitive offers.
00:08:25.900So these guys are here to say we're not a monopoly, it's not going to be there.
00:08:30.180And they just got pulled into the vortex of reality by saying, hey, we don't have advocacy.
00:08:37.220That's a clever word that they're using.
00:09:09.680If you go a little bit lower to the stats right there, the organization's report LGBTQ messaging pervasive in Netflix children programming showed that both 41% of G-rated programs and 41% of TV Y7 shows include LGBTQ elements, a result that CWA president and CEO Penny Nance called shocking.
00:09:34.740That's absolutely insane to be thinking about that, especially following a $2 million lawsuit that just came out with a young girl who transitioned.
00:09:42.880And now she got $1.6 million, I think, and another $400,000 for a total of $2 million.
00:10:18.140The reason why they're merging in the first place is because they need to create a larger content library that appeals to more people because their individual content library, let's face it, is just garbage.
00:10:29.380Netflix should be dominating completely.
00:10:32.320The fact that they're not and they're actually trying to buy Warner's library, it is an acknowledgement that they have failed, that their agenda has failed, and they're trying to keep it going for as long as they possibly can.
00:10:43.480I think this is one of those situations where they've created a monster they can no longer control.
00:10:48.160When everybody started to shift to streaming, companies just threw money at Hollywood.
00:11:02.780So they enabled all of these left-leaning producers, like you said, showrunners, talent, and everybody, and just gave them gobs of money, created tons of content, and now they're stuck because these are their one source of content creation.
00:11:16.180And they can't really do much about it.
00:11:18.360They can't go back in the other direction because the people that they've enabled would absolutely revolt if they even thought about doing something differently.
00:11:25.420So, to me, in many ways, this merger is an acknowledgment that we've failed in that model.
00:12:48.080They have to find some kind of legal basis.
00:12:51.580They can't just willy-nilly say we're going to do it.
00:12:52.980And there's not a monopoly law that doesn't exist here because it's not like it's about 50%.
00:12:56.380Yeah, so I think unless they have some kind of legal basis that's already been spun up that we haven't heard about, which is possible, I just don't think it's likely.
00:13:05.460Yeah, I don't think that it's as certain that Netflix goes out with this because it doesn't feel like Trump wants that to be the case.
00:13:11.660It doesn't feel like the conservatives want that to be the case.
00:13:13.280I think they'd rather have Paramount slash Oracle, like in my view.
00:13:17.840But I think both scenarios are bad for different reasons.
00:13:20.420I think Netflix, you know, because of the propaganda side, Paramount because of the control side because of some of the things that they're aligned with.
00:13:26.740But what Holly said there's totally true or what Serrano said to Holly is true as far as how are you controlling what your kids watch?
00:13:37.000You know, maybe he's able to, but a lot of parents aren't able to control what their kids watch.
00:13:40.800And Netflix got to that position where since they were first, I think they were able to be comfortable in, you know, putting out propaganda, putting out their messaging they're aligned with because they were comfortable in that number one position.
00:13:50.940Because, I mean, their stock's still doing really well.
00:13:52.960They're still, you know, have a ton of market share for kind of abusing their product for a long time.
00:13:57.680So, yeah, I think that, you know, it's unfortunate that a lot of parents probably don't even have the ability to make sure their kids aren't watching that stuff.
00:14:04.980And it does a lot of damage to society.
00:14:06.440Like, we've seen those charts that show, like, was it 20% of Gen Z identifies as part of LGBT?
00:14:13.040You know, like, where's that coming from?
00:14:14.120It's coming from entertainment and education.
00:14:16.340So, yeah, I mean, I think it's a threat to society to let them just get away with it.