Maybe Don’t Sell Everything to Netflix

Is David Zaslav making a mistake by licensing so much top-shelf content to the industry’s 800 pound gorilla? Or has Netflix simply already won the streaming wars, and everyone else must simply attempt to ensure their own debt-servicing survival?

The question for David Zaslav: Is anything off limits? Photo: Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Matthew Belloni

November 6, 2023

I joked a while back that Warner Bros. Discovery C.E.O. David Zaslav would auction Jack Warner’s antique desk if it helped pay down even a tiny sliver of the company’s crippling debt. A few months later, that humor now seems quaint. Zaslav actually is selling off the crown jewels—or at least renting his biggest I.P.-driven movies—to generate that needed cash, yes, but also while helping the industry’s 800 lb gorilla pull away from the rest of Hollywood. More proof that the Streaming Wars are over…