Kristian Stout Quoted on Antitrust Debate Over Netflix-Warner Bros. Discovery Deal
Kristian Stout, ICLE Director of Innovation Policy, was quoted in a Media Play News article on antitrust scrutiny of Netflix’s proposed $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery and the debate over how to define competition in today’s video marketplace. Read the full article here.
To Kristian Stout, director of innovation policy at the International Center for Law & Economics, a nonpartisan global research and policy center, any antitrust conversation on Capitol Hill about the deal doesn’t square with the myriad ways people consume entertainment in the modern era.
“Antitrust analysis should reflect how people actually watch video today, not how the industry looked decades ago,” Stout said in a statement.
Stout contends that viewers divide their time across multiple subscription services, ad-supported streaming and open platforms such as YouTube, with minimal friction to navigate between them.
“The Netflix–Warner transaction does not signal market power,” Stout said. “Instead, it looks like a pro-consumer response to intense competition in a crowded market where attention — not subscriptions — is the binding constraint.”