For more than a decade, Netflix has guarded its original library like a vault. No matter how loudly analysts insisted they were leaving money on the table, the company refused to license its shows to other streamers. Why should we strengthen a competitor? was always the unspoken logic.
But Netflix’s potential acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery might force the biggest philosophical shift in the streamer’s history.
According to Bloomberg, Netflix, now officially in the race alongside Comcast and Paramount, has promised to continue licensing WBD’s century-old library to third parties if it wins the bid.
That includes some of Hollywood’s most valuable cultural assets: Harry Potter, DC, Looney Tunes, and HBO’s heavyweight catalogue. In other words, Netflix would be stepping into a business it has long dismissed: selling shows to rival platforms.
The irony is impossible to ignore. Netflix built its empire complaining that studios like Disney and Warner “took their toys back,” pulling licensed hits to launch their own services. Now, Netflix may soon become the company deciding who gets Succession, The Wire, The White Lotus, or even Game of Thrones.
And if Netflix embraces licensing in any form, that barrier it built around its own originals starts to look less permanent. Maybe The Crown could show up on Amazon someday. Maybe Stranger Things reruns could air on linear TV. Maybe the era of walled gardens is ending not because streamers want it to, but because the economics demand it.
Investors aren’t fully convinced. WBD is expensive, messy, and not essential to Netflix’s survival. But the fact that Netflix is even entertaining this strategy is the real story.
If the deal goes through, the industry’s most stubborn holdout might finally be preparing to share its toys, not out of generosity, but because the business is shifting faster than anyone expected.
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