WGA West president Michele Mulroney doubled down on the guild’s statement amid the news that Paramount Skydance launched a hostile takeover bid to combat the Warner Bros. Discovery-Netflix mega-deal.
As Mulroney shared on the “Ankler Agenda” Monday, the Writers Guild doesn’t think either Netflix or Paramount will be good for the industry and that they’ve refused to take a side in the bidding war.
“There is no preferred winner,” Mulroney said. “Our belief here is that whoever wins, writers lose. There are problems with both of those acquisitions. So yeah, this is not buyer specific. This is us looking at this as a massive antirust issue where we believe the government really needs to step in.”
She continued: “This potential merge is going to not just hurt all industry workers but consumers who always inevitably end up paying the cost for these mergers. And, you know, the economy. I mean, were the theatrical business to suffer under Netflix ownership, which we believe it would, that doesn’t just impact our members, it it greatly impacts local economies.”
As we reported, the Writers Guild of America West and Writers Guild of America East jointly denounced Netflix’s $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday.
“The world’s largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent,” the unions’ statement read.
“The outcome would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers,” it continued. “Industry workers along with the public are already impacted by only a few powerful companies maintaining tight control over what consumers can watch on television, on streaming and in theaters. This merger must be blocked.”
Mulroney echoed these sentiments on Monday, standing by the WGA’s demand for the merger to be blocked — a stance which was not necessarily taken by other unions.
“The WGA has been vigorously opposing merger consolidation and sounding the alarm in that arena for many, many years now,” Mulroney said. “We believe that further contraction of this business is extremely harmful to writers and all industry workers. And yes, the other guilds are taking their own positions, and, it’s important to note though, none of them exactly came out in favor of this. Everybody had concerns and questions.”
She added: “We made a strong statement, which we stand by with our sister guild, the Writers Guild East. We believe this presents a huge regulatory issue and we need the government to step in and and let the antitrust gears, you know, start working on this potential merger because we believe it has the potential to be extremely damaging.”
The Producers Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, Teamsters and the DGA all have expressed concern regarding the acquisition.
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