Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood

Netflix shocked the world last year by winning a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. This week it shocked us by walking away.In this emergency bonus episode, CNBC’s Alex Sherman walks us through the whiplash: Why Netflix chose not to counter Paramount, what the market blowback signaled, and how much of this was about price versus the very real prospect of a long, ugly regulatory and political slog.Then we spin it forward: what a Paramount/WBD mash-up means in practice (translation: overlap, “synergies,” and a lot of job anxiety)? What happens to crown-jewel assets like HBO and CNN? And why this isn’t just another media merger, but a power shift. We don’t really know what David and Larry Ellison have planned for their newly acquired media empire — but we do know that they are now very big players. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood is an episode from Recode Media by Vox Media Podcast Network.

This episode is 33:31 long.

This episode was published on Feb 27, 2026.

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