Would Netflix bid for Warner Bros.? Discovery? Comments from co-CEO Greg Peters suggest not, although he left the door open for a potential deal.
Peters was interviewed at the Bloomberg Screentime conference on Wednesday evening, where interviewer Lucas Shaw pressed him on the report that Netflix might be interested in WBD, or at least the company’s studio operations post-split.
“We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers. I also think there needs to be some skepticism about big media mergers because they don’t have an incredible track record throughout history,” Peters said, before adding, “I would say it’s our responsibility to evaluate all of our options.”
“Our job is to figure out what is the best way to grow our business? » he continued. “And we need to think very carefully about how to invest our capital and our time and our attention, and if that’s the best way to do it, great, and if it’s not, then we should do something else.”
One of the areas the company is investing in is gaming, and Peters announced Wednesday that Netflix will release board games for TVs in the coming weeks and months, including LEGO Party!, Pictionary: Game Night, Boggle Party, Tetris Time Warp.
Peters also commented on the fact that Netflix’s engagement has remained somewhat stable, even as the largest streaming platform, YouTube, continues to grow month after month.
“I’m not happy with the fact that we’re not increasing our commitment,” he said. “We should increase our commitment.”
But that doesn’t mean the company wants to get into the user-generated content business.
“I think the stupidest thing would be to try to match them in every way,” he added. “Because I think you really have to know what path you’re in and then try to be great at that and then champion that path. What do we do? We invest with creators so that they can tell their stories in a really, really compelling way, in a way that the YouTube model doesn’t really allow them to do. So we want to work with the best creators on the planet. Some of these people will come from YouTube. They’ll come from TikTok. “
