Julia Love reports to Reuters that the chief executive of Netflix, Reed Hastings is in favour of AT&T’s “$85.4 billion” acquisition plan of Time Warner Inc. if the latter being a “popular media streaming company” of Hastings receives fair treatment.
While addressing the conference crowd at the Laguna Beach, California, hosted by the Wall Street Journal, Hastings mentioned that treating Netflix’s content in the same manner as Time Warner, post the deal is of “critical” importance. In his words:
“If it’s open competition, we’d love that”.
When it comes to “net neutrality”, Hastings turned out to be “an outspoken advocates”, whereby the providers of internet service should not show any favour over any content and should treat all with equality. Hastings adds:
“The key thing is net neutrality, which has not been AT&T’s favorite topic”.
For AT&T the deal is of a “landmark” in nature which will allow the company to have control over “cable TV channels HBO and CNN, film studio Warner Bros and other coveted assets, reshaping the media landscape”. However, the shares of Time Warner as well as AT&T fell in the starting of this week lest the acquisition fail to “withstand” regulators’ scrutiny.
Moreover, the subscription growth at Netflix is slowing down in the United States, while Hulu, Amazon.com Inc. and the likes are giving competition to Netflix. Fuelled by the accelerated “pace of deals”, speculations have aroused in the market that Netflix may the “next acquisition target”. While Hastings continued:
“I can't tell you how many bankers have called this week. We don’t take any of the calls.”
References:
http://www.reuters.com/
While addressing the conference crowd at the Laguna Beach, California, hosted by the Wall Street Journal, Hastings mentioned that treating Netflix’s content in the same manner as Time Warner, post the deal is of “critical” importance. In his words:
“If it’s open competition, we’d love that”.
When it comes to “net neutrality”, Hastings turned out to be “an outspoken advocates”, whereby the providers of internet service should not show any favour over any content and should treat all with equality. Hastings adds:
“The key thing is net neutrality, which has not been AT&T’s favorite topic”.
For AT&T the deal is of a “landmark” in nature which will allow the company to have control over “cable TV channels HBO and CNN, film studio Warner Bros and other coveted assets, reshaping the media landscape”. However, the shares of Time Warner as well as AT&T fell in the starting of this week lest the acquisition fail to “withstand” regulators’ scrutiny.
Moreover, the subscription growth at Netflix is slowing down in the United States, while Hulu, Amazon.com Inc. and the likes are giving competition to Netflix. Fuelled by the accelerated “pace of deals”, speculations have aroused in the market that Netflix may the “next acquisition target”. While Hastings continued:
“I can't tell you how many bankers have called this week. We don’t take any of the calls.”
References:
http://www.reuters.com/