The globally popular streaming giant Netflix was one of the bidders to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of, among others, TVN. However, the TV station was excluded from the offer. Why didn't the company want to buy traditional TV? — Our television perspective was based mainly on what was proposed by the heads of Warner Bros. Discovery, who believed that separating this older segment would de facto increase the value of the studio and the streaming that remained, and in which we were ultimately interested, Greg Peters, president of Netflix, told Wyborcza. He also revealed another reason.
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Netflix's CEO on traditional television: we don't know how to do it well
Greg Peters stated that Netflix does not specialize in operating linear television and would be unlikely to achieve success in this field. – We don't know how to do it properly. Sure, never say never, but we came to the conclusion that we were unlikely to succeed in this area. We agreed to the idea of separating these segments, which would allow us to focus on studio streaming – he emphasized in an interview with “Wyborcza”.
According to Netflix's CEO, the future of traditional television may vary from country to country. Poland is one of the markets where this medium still has a strong position and people will watch TV here for many years to come. However, his company definitely prefers to focus on its core business, which is the production and distribution of content via Internet streaming.
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Ultimately, Netflix withdrew from negotiations to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, and the offer of Paramount Skydance – the potential future owner of TVN – also included linear television. Representatives of the management board of Paramount Skydance spoke at the beginning of March about projected declines in revenues from this segment, but assured that the company did not plan to sell it because, despite the planned declines, it still believed in it. — There are no plans at this point to sell or spin off the cable station asset package, said Andy Gordon, chief operating officer, quoted by Wirtualne Media.
