Today, a happy ending for Netflix.
This is a rare opportunity that's going to help us achieve our mission to entertain the world and to bring people together through great stories.
But could it be a horror movie for cinema owners?
This is a significant, significant threat, we believe, to the long-term viability of theatrical exhibition.
Netflix buys Warners on World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Ed Butler and today we are looking at that takeover by Netflix of Warner's streaming services a 72 billion deal.
We're also going to be considering the global trade in animal body parts and the costs of transport for fans at next year's Football World Cup.
Now, is this the beginning of a radical reshaping of the US media landscape?
A merger of two modern titans of American screen entertainment.
Yes, you may recognise those jingles.
Netflix has agreed to buy fellow media giant Warner Brothers streaming and studio business for a whopping 72 billion jaw-dropping by any industry standards.
Warner Brothers owns the streaming service HBO Max, as well as major franchises like Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, among others.
The Netflix chief executive, Ted Sarandos, said...
The agreement would help to define the next century of storytelling.
I know some of you are surprised that we're making this acquisition.
And I certainly understand why.
Over the years, we have been known to be builders, not buyers.
We already have incredible shows and movies and a great business model.
And it's working for talent, it's working for consumers, and it's working for shareholders.
But this is a rare opportunity.
And it's going to help us achieve our mission to entertain the world and to bring people together through great stories.
Well, with more.
I'm now joined by the entertainment news journalist KJ Matthews, who's in Los Angeles.
He said some people would be surprised.
Were you surprised, KJ?
I was stunned.
I really was stunned.
I mean, we're always hearing that Netflix might do this and Netflix might do that because they are the streaming giant in Hollywood.
But it's always just banter.
It's always just talk.
Now it's reality.
I mean the fact that you have Netflix, super giant, number one in the streaming world, and then Warner Brothers with its huge, vast portfolio of assets and IP.
It's just it's mind boggling that this is actually going to happen.
Yeah, I mean we've got the list, haven't we?
From Warner's back catalogue Game of Thrones, White Lotus Friends Succession, The Sopranos so many titles being merged now under one roof.
It feels big.
I guess a lot of consumers will be delighted at least at the thought that they don't have to kind of get two subscriptions to get all of this stuff together right now.
Yeah, you know, of course you have Ted Sarandos saying it's better for Netflix's long term.
In the end, it's going to make them stronger.
And who wouldn't want to have, you know, the Warner Brothers assets?
You know, you've got Harry Potter, you've got Friends, you've got all those other things.
But one thing to keep in mind yes, there will be more choices for netflix, uh subscribers.
However, will the prices go up, because you're getting more content now and netflix has been known to raise its prices over the years anyway.
Now this would give them the perfect opportunity to say you know, we've increased your library by three and four fold, so you're going to have to pay higher prices.
So yes, more choices.
A lot of things that we love to go along with all the other great titles of Netflix, like Stranger Things.
But I would not be surprised if you saw higher prices.
Yeah.
I mean, I saw Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat senator, raising that prospect.
Risks, job losses, higher subscription prices, she reckons.
We've got Republicans in Washington also wondering, haven't we?
This is...
This is really interesting because this is the first bipartisan issue I've seen in a while.
Usually there's something that comes out Democrats are for it, Republicans are against it, or Republicans are for something and Democrats are against it.
This is one of the few things I've seen in a while where both leaders in Congress of the Democratic and Republican parties are voicing strong opposition to this.
Not only that, you also have the Producers Guild of America.
That's the union that represents the producers in Hollywood.
They've even gone so far to release a statement saying producers are rightfully concerned about Netflix's intended acquisition of one of our industry's most storied and meaningful studios.
They go on and on, but they basically say, you know, this is a test that the Netflix deal must pass.
Our legacy studios are more than content libraries within their vaults.
They're the character and culture of our nation.
So they're very concerned about their members, producers and how it's going to affect them.
And most most likely probably pay, you know, the kind of pay structure that they have now.
How will that affect them?
So I think all of the unions in Hollywood and you have both Republicans and Democrats in Congress that are either opposed to it or concerned about it.
KJ Matthews, stay where you are.
Thank you for now.
I want to bring in Michael O'Leary.
He's CEO and president of Cinema United.
So yeah, not just the producers and not just some members of Congress, but 30000 or more movie theatre owners, according to Michael O'Leary.
Is that right, sir?
You think there are concerns here?
Yeah, thank you for having me.
I will tell you there are concerns here.
I know there are concerns here.
Historically, when you look at legacy studios being acquired by someone else, that results in a direct reduction in the amount of movies that are made to go into theaters.
And that has happened historically when one studio is purchased by another.
In the present case, which is what is so troubling and so worrisome to theater owners not just in the United States but around the world, is that the purchaser, in this case Netflix, has a long history of stating clearly and repeatedly that they don't believe in theatrical exhibition.
So what this will mean, if it goes through, is that there will be fewer movies in the theaters, theaters will close, consumers will have less opportunities and jobs will be lost.
So yes, we have serious concerns.
But we have seen I mean we have seen a number of very successful Netflix films, have produced films going through theatrical release.
And Netflix has said, hasn't it, today, it expects to maintain Warner Brothers' current operations.
Well, you know, there are a lot of people saying a lot of things right now.
If you're talking about a meaningful commitment to theatrical exhibition, that has to involve three things a consistent and viable slate of movies, a meaningful period of exclusivity for those movies to be in the theaters.
And being supported by marketing.
If you go back to 2023, The average length of time a Netflix movie was in a theatre was 11 days.
By far the shortest window of any producer of movies that's out there.
Why is that required?
I mean if audiences are not going to the cinema, if the market doesn't really want it, if people prefer to stream films at home in their living rooms.
That's what people want.
I don't accept your premise that that's what people want.
If you look at the statistics that are out there, there are more people going to movies each and every year.
In the United States alone last year, 200 million Americans went to the theater.
And the number of people who go six or more times a year has grown 8% in the last 12 months.
And the truth is, the evidence shows that the longer a film is in a theater, it allows the time for the movie to connect with audiences, for word of mouth to spread and for more and more people to go see it.
So I don't accept your premise that the decision has been made by the movie-going consumer that they would rather watch it at home.
There's no experience like seeing a movie in a theater.
I don't care how nice your house is or how big your TV screen is.
There is something unique and special about seeing something on the silver screen.
And that's why people, they still seek that experience.
And that's why people will be hurt if there's fewer opportunities to go to the theater and see a movie.
Are you lobbying the government to intervene?
And if so, on what grounds?
Yes, we are going to talk to officials at the federal level in the United States, at the state level in the United States.
Our international colleagues will be reaching out to different governments around the world, not just in Europe, but in South America as well, on the grounds that this is anti-competitive.
It's not good for consumers.
And it's going to create an enormous amount of power in a very compact area in one company.
And it's just not good for the overall entertainment ecosystem.
So, yes, we intend to push on this and to make our case in forums all around the world.
Michael O'Leary, CEO and President of Cinema United.
Thank you.
A final word there from KJ Matthews, if you're still listening.
I mean, the argument here about the monopoly question, this is the antitrust question.
Doesn't it depend whether you regard...
Netflix and Warners as part of, you know, the streaming movie making ecosystem, or are they just part of a much wider kind of eyeballs world?
After all, it's TV networks, it's social media, it's things that really aren't part of this deal, in which case maybe you can't really claim that this is a monopoly taking over.
Well, I will say, this is a little bit different in that there are so many parties in opposition to this.
And it does, as you mentioned, have a huge uphill battle, regulatory speaking.
You need regulators from the Department of Justice, FTC.
You definitely need President Trump's approval.
He's already shown skepticism.
So it's got a long road ahead of it.
But on the other side, with Netflix, they're probably going to argue look, there have been many mergers and acquisitions over the years, from local television stations to even studios.
I mean, Paramount, which was bought by Skydance months ago.
So acquisitions and mergers have been happening over the last, I would say, couple of years at a very breakneck speed.
They're going to ask what's different when it comes to them.
If all the other mergers have passed, if all the other acquisitions have gone through and nobody batted an eyelash, why now?
KJ Matthews in Hollywood.
Thank you very much indeed.
Chris Lowe, chief economist at FHN Financial in New York, has been listening.
What do you think about this antitrust question?
I think that is spot on, frankly.
You know, there are bigger players that were allowed to accumulate assets for years.
You know?
Just to point to one, there's ABC television, with ESPN, which is the biggest sports network in the US, and Disney under its belt, not to mention news outlets.
So...
I don't think this deal is unusual in the space.
It will undergo a tremendous scrutiny, but I suspect it'll be allowed to continue.
OK.
In other news, let's move on.
SpaceX, it's kicking off a secondary share sale which values the rocket maker at $800 billion.
Is that right?
Well, and then you know, when you think about what they've managed to do this year, right in the first 10 months of the year, they've put more tonnage into space than NASA during the entire history of the space shuttle program.
It is a pretty – impressive operation.
It is.
It's a very impressive valuation too, though, isn't it?
I mean, we'll have to see how that one goes.
A quick thought.
The United States has condemned the European Union for imposing a fine of nearly 140 million on another of Elon Musk's properties, the social media firm X.
What are your thoughts there?
You know, I think this is really.
It's just the difference between European and US attitudes towards speech.
In the US, free speech is guaranteed in the Constitution.
In Europe, it's not.
And...
Well, speech or publishing, I suppose, is the dilemma here, isn't it?
Yeah, well, that's right.
You know, here, a post on X counts as speech.
There, of course, it's differentiated, and that's what he's run into.
Chris Lowe, thank you very much indeed.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
One other story that's been occupying a lot of headlines today new government rules in India, which were meant to extend the number of hours that pilots could fly, have today been suspended.
This was after tens of thousands of passengers of one budget airline called Indigo found themselves stranded at airports throughout the country due to cancelled flights.
When you can give me a printer for booking, for rescheduling, why not for cancellation?
I'm winding and if you are in my place... Very angry customer there.
Indigo has 60% of India's domestic market and it operates more than 2,000 flights every single day.
More than 1,000 of those, though, were cancelled.
These passengers at Chennai airport were left fuming.
Nobody's helping out with anyone.
So I checked downstairs on the baggage.
They're not helping.
No information on the website, on the delay.
No information on the app.
Nothing.
They issue the boarding pass and then leave you to stand.
We came at 8 a.m.
Our flight was 11.10 a.m.
It was cancelled, but they didn't tell us.
They extended departure time by 30 minutes several times.
At 1.30 p.m., we were told the flight was cancelled.
A flavour of some of the chaos in Indian airports.
Our reporter in Mumbai, Archana Shukla, told me about the background here.
Today was one of the worst, where about more than 400 flights have been cancelled by Indigo, particularly because they're facing a shortage of pilots, largely because they have failed to adapt to the new crew rostering rules, which somewhere demand that there are lesser night flight hours for pilots and they should be given more rest hours.
And we've seen hundreds of flights being cancelled.
The result is...
Thousands of passengers were stranded at various airports across India.
Today, Indigo in fact cancelled all their domestic flights out of the capital city, New Delhi.
And you can imagine they being the largest airline, holding about 60 of the market.
And them, cancelling so many flights means the entire domestic air travel is in disarray.
Well, the government rules that led to these cancellations were meant to reduce the night hours that pilots could fly.
This was for safety reasons.
Captain C.S.
Randhawa he's president of the Federation of Indian Pilots told us he'd never seen anything quite like this chaos.
I have had almost 50 years of aviation experience and I have never seen this kind of chaos happening in any country.
Now, in Indigo Airline, they knew that there would be a requirement of increase in pilots.
So there is a total mismanagement in the airline.
Airline was aware since last two years that this is going to be implemented.
What did they do?
How come the bomb blasted only on the 2nd of December and cancellations go hitting the roof beyond my actually imagination?
Well, as mentioned, the new rules have now been suspended by the Indian Civil Aviation Authority.
Indigo's chief executive, Peter Elbers, issued a statement saying that this would help, but he said there is still lots yet to be agreed.
Archana Shukla again.
She says it could still take some time for things to get back to normal.
The airline says it's trying to get its schedule back on track.
It says it will only be until February next year that it would come back to its original schedule.
They have also got a relief, some sort of an exemption from the regulator, to adhere to these new rules by February.
So remember, it's the peak travel season.
It's the winter holiday season.
It's also the wedding season here in India.
So for passengers, it's definitely going to be a tough time ahead.
Archana Shukla.
Well, let's stay in India, but with a rather different story.
Officials in the country say that they've arrested one of the world's most wanted traffickers of tiger body parts.
Yangchen Lachungba was detained after months of surveillance in sub-zero conditions along the India-China border in Sikkim state.
She's accused of playing a critical role in building trafficking corridors from India to Nepal.
Tibet and China for tiger parts and for pangolin scales.
Crawford Allen is vice president for the World Wildlife Fund and an expert in wildlife crime.
Crawford, tell us, I mean, this trade in tigers specifically, how big is it on international terms?
Yeah, well, hello.
And sadly, it is tragically far, far too large.
We know, for example, in the past five years, about 575 tigers were seized in illegal trade, most of those in terms of tiger parts, unfortunately.
It's about nine tigers a month over the past five years are being seized illegally.
And obviously, that's the tip of the iceberg.
That's just what's being seized.
It's not really the full scale of the trafficking.
And obviously when you have a population of tigers, which is about 5600 tigers left in the wild, that kind of offtake is really significant in terms of pushing the tiger closer to extinction.
$20 billion annually, one of the largest illicit trades.
Now, I mean, this is being driven by the demand from traditional Chinese medicine.
Is that right?
In part, yes.
Traditional Chinese medicine has typically been one of the major drivers of tiger poaching over the recent decades, which has caused the massive declines of tiger populations.
But there is also new trends and new shifts.
Unfortunately, there is moving away from the traditional medicine use in Asia now.
There's also the collection of teeth and claws used in amulets for good fortune, which is very bad luck for tigers, and also is used in jewellery and ornaments.
Similarly, of course, tiger skins, as you can imagine, are still in demand to a degree.
I first saw them myself in Tibet for sale. along this border than this trafficking route in 2005.
The trade has gone underground since with a lot of enforcement efforts stepped up.
But it is this insidious demand that does continue.
There is a new trend as well in Vietnam, particularly for something called tiger bone glue, which is basically a substance that looks a bit like fudge which is boiled from tiger bones.
It's used to treat rheumatism and arthritis.
And we're hearing from intelligence, from law enforcement, they're actually mixing opioids in with this tiger bone glue medicine, not just to get the users hooked, but also it actually has this real effect, this real impact of helping alleviate pain for people with arthritis.
So it's a kind of a double whammy effect, if you like.
It's just really bad news for tigers.
It's extraordinary, the scale of it.
We are hearing, of course.
You mentioned Southeast Asia.
There's Sumatran tigers, we've got Siberian tigers, we've got Bengal tigers.
I mean, presumably they're coming from all corners of the tiger world.
And some of those subspecies are very, very endangered indeed.
I mean, is this about law enforcement, really?
Arrests like today's, which of course seems to be part of an organised trafficking network?
Or is the bigger challenge and you've touched on this perhaps about cutting off the demand inside this traditional Chinese medicine community?
Yeah, I mean, if we're going to save tigers, we have to take a supply chain approach.
So it's from protecting tigers on the ground with strong law enforcement, ranger patrolling, community-based investment and support through to combating the trafficking through the smuggling channels where there's corruption of law enforcement at border points by organised criminal networks, through to the markets themselves, where the main consumers are, and trying to bring about change in attitudes and behaviours so that people start to reject the use of tiger parts and products and understand the impact of what it's having on nature.
Crawford Allen, thank you very much indeed.
Crawford Allen of the WWF.
Let's talk football now.
The FIFA World Cup draw has just taken place in the US, with Presidents Trump, Scheinbaum and the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, all in attendance.
The World Cup is taking place in the stadiums across Canada, US and Mexico.
Fans everywhere have been chattering about the teams that they're all going to be facing in what is to be the largest World Cup ever, with 48 nations taking part.
Oh Well, that is the celebratory sound of the team of Curacao, a tiny southern Caribbean island with around 155000 inhabitants.
It is the smallest nation to be taking part in this year's World Cup.
In fact, it's never reached the finals before.
It's going to be facing four-time winners Germany, along with Cote d'Ivoire and Ecuador, in one of the groups.
Emlyn Peters is a fan.
He works in tourism in Curacao.
He joins us from there.
Are you excited, Emlyn?
I'm very excited and I'm still, still impressed with the fact that we can go to the World Cup.
I can't believe it.
Yeah, you're singing just like the national team there.
Tell us about what you're planning.
I mean, are you going to be going to the Games?
Yes, we are planning to go with a big group.
And big for us means like about more than 200 people would like to go in a group.
As a group, we are pending certain confirmations as per the airlines and hotels.
And so that we can make a final decision.
Because this is going to cut a little bit of our budget. and it will break the bank eventually.
Yeah, well, I would have thought so.
I mean at the moment I'm seeing you could be playing in Philadelphia Houston Toronto, Kansas City or New York or maybe a combination of those.
So you're going to find out tomorrow, right?
Which cities your games are actually going to be played in.
And I guess there's a world of difference between those cities in terms of the cost of things like hotels.
Yeah, that would be a big deal, but also the flights, you know.
And the fact is that as European citizens in the Caribbean, we need to fill out an ASTA.
That's an electronic travel authorization of the USA.
And it doesn't matter where you go, but you need to fill it out.
And you need to get approval for that.
And you need that as well to purchase your ticket online. and to book your accommodation.
And it's a big, huge difference between New York and Houston.
Just imagine yourself the flight from Curacao in the Caribbean is as long as the flight from New York to Houston.
So it would be a lot of traveling.
Yeah, a lot of traveling, but you've got some amazing games to look forward to.
Germany, I mean, what are your thoughts there?
Well, to tell you the truth, there are some people that are in favor of Germany, but we all agreed for social media, that definitely, of course, we will be for Curacao.
And it's a big issue on social media.
You see it constantly on Instagram and Facebook, and also by Twitter, that people that usually are for Germany are now for Curacao.
OK, so where do you want to go?
Of those different cities, is there an ambition?
Are you likely you're going to be travelling between cities to go to the three different games?
I take it.
Yes, yes.
New York will be definitely one that we would like to go, and Houston and Texas will definitely will be the other one.
So those two are for sure.
You're for sure, but you're just not quite sure, of course, which one it's going to be.
Well listen, all of our thoughts are with you Emlyn, and indeed the 47 other nations who are all going to be taking part in the biggest ever World Cup yet to be staged.
We're going to be enjoying all of that from Canada. the US and Mexico next summer.
But until then, that's it for this show, for this edition of World Business Report.
From me and the rest of the team here in Salford, thank you very much for listening.
