David Ellison eliminated Warner Bros. Discovery and merged it with Paramount to form the new Skydance Corp. Today, everyone is talking about the industry’s next mega-merger.
In today’s landscape, only one media company of considerable size could be ready for acquisition: NBCUniversal. Following its planned spinoff from Comcast in mid-2027, NBCU could recoup $60 billion from a motivated buyer, research firm Morningstar estimates. As for who that buyer could be, industry sources uniformly point to Netflix as the leading candidate.
Netflix chief Ted Sarandos after walking away from the streamer’s efforts to acquire Warner Bros. and HBO, said his main takeaway was that “we’ve really flexed our muscles when it comes to mergers and acquisitions.” He didn’t reveal what Netflix might do next, saying in April only that “we are investing in the company organically and opportunistically.”
Meanwhile, Comcast executives, in announcing plans to split NBCU in June, said they were not splitting up the media company to prepare it for a sale. But when asked about the possibility of mergers and acquisitions after the split, Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh, who is set to become NBCU’s chief executive after the split, suggested deals could be in the offing. As an independent company, it “will now have the freedom to explore adjacent businesses that we have the right to play in,” he told Wall Street analysts.
Regarding speculation about deal scenarios for independent NBCU, communications director Jen Friedman said in a statement to Variety: “We have said from the beginning that we are not pursuing this strategy for mergers and acquisitions purposes. Our plan for NBCU is to prepare the company for growth, and we see a way to do that given our leading businesses in the most attractive segments of media, our differentiated strategy and our uniquely strong balance sheet.” Netflix declined to comment.
For most of its 29-year history, Netflix has avoided big mergers and acquisitions, preferring to stick to its knitting while still enjoying strong financial and subscriber growth. But the math is different now: In the third quarter of 2026, revenue growth fell to 11.8%, the lowest level in three years, and subscribers in the United States are spending less time with Netflix than before.
To jump-start growth, “Netflix needs to make an acquisition,” says Terry Dugan, co-head of entertainment finance at law firm Moore & Van Allen. “The only obvious suspect is NBCUniversal.” He says smaller players like Lionsgate, A24 or Neon on the theater side, or Starz or AMC Global Media on the TV side, simply wouldn’t be big enough to make a difference for Netflix in terms of increasing viewing on the service.
After Ellison’s capture of WB, “the pressure within the industry to be more scaled” — that is, bring together a larger collection of media assets and greater production power to compete on a global scale — “has never been greater,” says a senior studio executive. “People feel more pressure to consolidate. But it has to be the right solution.”
Yes, Netflix is still making nice profits and showing quarter-over-quarter growth. But top brass were alarmed at the slowing pace. Sarandos and co-director Greg Peters decided to reshuffle his content leadership team, handing over Bela Bajaria as head of content and Dan Lin as head of film. The purge is an apparent concession by Netflix’s co-CEOs that the company doesn’t offer enough must-watch content — and that declining U.S. engagement isn’t just part of the natural ebb and flow of viewing.
To replace Bajaria, Sarandos recruited veteran Peter Rice, who has a reputation as someone who “understands talent relationships,” Sarandos told Wall Street after the streamer revealed its third-quarter results on October 20.
But an overhaul of Netflix’s content lineup might not be enough to change things, and that has fueled speculation that it could be eyeing a soon-to-be independent NBCU — especially as it faces Skydance in the market. This idea was reinforced by the speed with which Netflix closed a deal valued at $72 billion for Warner Bros.’ streaming and studio businesses. and HBO before Paramount’s exorbitant offer for all of Warner Bros. Discovery won’t win.
“When Comcast first announced that it was going to split from NBCU, I immediately said, ‘Netflix is going after this,’ because they lost the crown jewel of Warner Bros.,” says Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester.
The Universal Pictures library is home to 4,000 films, including Pierre Coffin’s “Minions & Monsters.”
Photo credit: Illumination & Universal Pictures
NBCU would, for the most part, fit well into Netflix’s overall business. Peacock had 48 million subscribers at the end of September, and merging that with Netflix’s 325 million-plus subscriber base would be a win for both parties. It’s easy to see Bravo and its distinct brand of lifestyle shows becoming a tile on the Netflix app.
Universal Pictures’ library is home to more than 4,000 films and 130,000 TV episodes, including huge franchises like “Back to the Future,” “Jurassic Park,” “The Bourne Identity,” “Fast & Furious” and “Despicable Me” — not to mention Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” one of the biggest blockbusters of 2026. NBC has big sports rights deals, including deals with the NFL and NBA. and Major League Baseball. And NBCU has a significant theme park business, second only to Disney in size. NBCU’s operations also include Sky, the satellite television platform that serves approximately 20 million subscribers in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Italy.
“Netflix is about sports, theater and experiential. NBCU checks all those boxes,” says John Conca, a telecom and media analyst at investment research firm Third Bridge.
Adds Zach Darrow, chairman and CEO of the corporate law firm DarrowEverett, which runs its private equity, capital markets and securities businesses: “Netflix has money to spend. They didn’t get the deal with Warner Bros. but they showed they were willing to make a significant investment. They backed out when they hit their limit – they’re a credible bidder for a library or studio.”
For Comcast, the fallout is mainly financial maneuvering. Brian Roberts, chairman and co-CEO of Comcast, and the Roberts family will remain the majority shareholder of Comcast and NBCUniversal following the separation. Cavanagh will serve as CEO of NBCU, with Donna Langley, president of NBCUniversal Entertainment, and Matt Strauss, president of NBCUniversal Media Group (which includes Peacock), among his top lieutenants. Still, it’s a symbolic change for the media mogul family that made its fortune as one of the nation’s first wire companies for cable television.
Comcast executives say they are splitting from NBCU after more than 15 years so the scaled-down company stands on its own rather than being lumped in with Comcast’s capital-intensive cable and wireless businesses. In other words, Comcast believes that NBCU is worth more if it isn’t tied to the parent company’s core cable systems business.
Comcast expects the spinoff to be tax-free for shareholders. But under IRS rules, to avoid paying high capital gains taxes, NBCU and Comcast must wait two years before selling to a third party. That means it could be mid-2029 by the time NBCU is in play. However, if Netflix really wants NBCU, its bankers and lawyers can probably get creative with a deal structure to resolve the tax issue. The timing could encourage Netflix to attempt to strike a deal with Comcast to buy NBCU in the next six months or so, before the formal separation from Comcast is complete.
There are other factors that complicate the conclusion of a potential Netflix-NBCU deal. On the one hand, Netflix certainly wouldn’t want to own the Sky business because it’s focused on pay TV and broadband, says Matthew Dolgin, an analyst at Morningstar. Netflix has also disavowed its interest in linear television. But Reed Hastings used to swear that Netflix would never get into the advertising business, either — until the company did so in 2022. Adding NBC’s entertainment and sports programming, Dolgin says, “would make the Netflix service stickier and give them more pricing power.”
As for the regulatory challenges of a possible Netflix-NBCU merger, such a combo could see retaliation such as requiring Netflix to spin off NBC’s television broadcast operations. But this summer, the Justice Department let Paramount-Warner Bros. pass. without any conditions. An antitrust challenge launched by 12 Democratic attorneys general over the Paramount-WBD deal — alleging the new entity would have undue power over theatrical movie releases and cable television — ended with the attorneys general adopting a set of minimum behavioral terms, ultimately allowing the $111 billion horizontal merger to close.
Instead of an M&A deal, Netflix could look to other types of business deals, like bundled partnerships, to try to expand, says Professor Tammy Madsen, a professor of management at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. But, she adds, “if they want to move quickly, it will be through acquisitions.” And again, NBC’s vast array of sports and other entertainment IP rights would give Netflix a wealth of new content to attract and retain subscribers.
Whether Netflix feels the urgency to move into NBCU may depend on whether its investors believe Sarandos and Peters can stabilize the company without a major transformation move. Netflix shares plunged after signing Warner Bros. deal – shareholders hated that the transaction added $60 billion in new debt to Netflix’s balance sheet. But maybe NBCU will be the answer…
Gn entert
