Ted Sarandos defends Warner Bros bid and outlines Netflix live streaming strategy

Engagement growth and live programming

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos addressed the company's financial momentum and viewership trajectory during an appearance at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles. Netflix viewership expanded by 2% during the first half of 2026 across 200 billion hours watched by subscribers. Sarandos noted that global sporting events, including the World Cup, created direct headwinds against subscriber viewing time during the reporting period. To accelerate viewing growth, Netflix has committed resources toward live events such as NFL broadcasts, using scheduled live programming to generate new sign-ups, lower customer churn, and expand advertising inventory.

Overall, we're not growing as fast as I want us to, and we're working on making that move faster.

Sarandos detailed that live broadcasts represent a specialized allocation within the broader content budget.

The Warner Bros. bidding process

Sarandos defended Netflix's bid for Warner Bros., a pursuit that briefly deviated from the company's established practice of building proprietary assets rather than acquiring legacy studios. Netflix initially secured an agreement to acquire the film and television studio before Paramount, backed by David Ellison and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, submitted a larger bid for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery. The acquisition overcame its final regulatory hurdle on Wednesday when a federal judge approved a settlement between Paramount and state attorneys general. Sarandos stated that Netflix priced its initial offer at the exact ceiling where it could deliver returns for shareholders.

No, I think the plan was solid. We won the deal at some point, so we think we priced it right at our scale. That was the top price point where I thought we could return value to our shareholders with that asset. Any more than that, I thought we'd be taking it into negative territory, even with our scale.

Competitive landscape and talent rumors

Addressing the combined scale of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, Sarandos dismissed concerns that the merged entity would undermine Netflix's competitive standing. He also addressed industry reports suggesting Netflix attempted to recruit HBO and HBO Max content chairman Casey Bloys, describing a widely reported lunch between them as a standard meeting between industry peers. Bloys is expected to oversee programming for both Paramount+ and HBO Max once the merged corporate structure is announced. Sarandos also ruled out developing a completely ad-supported free tier, stating that any such tier would cannibalize the platform's core subscription business.

Production incentives and digital creators

During the discussion, Sarandos described his engagement with Donald Trump concerning potential federal tax credits for domestic film and television production. Sarandos pointed out that Netflix has filmed projects in all 50 US states, observing that attractive production subsidies in the United Kingdom have drawn a substantial volume of entertainment work away from the American market. Turning to digital platforms, Sarandos clarified Netflix's posture toward YouTube creators in a conversation with Lucas Shaw, stating that the streaming service is not entering the user-generated content market.

We're definitely not in the UGC business. We're in the professionally produced content business. Now, I think there's a bunch of people on platforms that are doing pretty close to professional programming already, and if we can better monetize that programming for them, then we can make a deal with them. But we're definitely not trying to bring over the whole population of creators.