What Happens To CNN Now That Netflix Took A Pass On WBD?

CNN wasn’t included in Netflix’s $82.7 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery—a move that, at first, might look like a glaring snub. After all, it leaves the WBD-owned news brand, one of the most recognizable in the world, out of Hollywood’s biggest deal in years. But look closer at the Netflix deal, and a different picture emerges.

There’s also a glass-half-full view, in that the Netflix–WBD deal may have spared CNN from a corporate parent that’s committed to protecting its foothold in foreign markets, even when that means agreeing to remove sensitive content.

Why Netflix didn’t buy CNN

Netflix is now the world’s dominant streaming service, operating in more than 190 countries. To do that, it’s occasionally acquiesced to local censorship—removing everything from a Hasan Minhaj segment critical of Saudi Arabia to films banned in countries like Singapore and Vietnam. “We’re not trying to do ‘truth to power,’” Netflix’s chairman Reed Hastings said at the New York Times DealBook conference in 2019, when pressed specifically about the Minhaj decision.

That stance, it should go without saying, is literally the opposite of the mandate a news organization abides by.

If Netflix had absorbed CNN, imagine its reporters trying to cover the Saudi crown prince or digital surveillance in India, all while its parent company is negotiating access in those same markets. Staff would have been right to feel leery.

Which is why, in a counterintuitive way, CNN may have gotten something better by being left out of the Netflix-WBD deal. And that’s before factoring in the political landmines associated with Netflix’s other rival bidder: Paramount’s offer reportedly included investment from Saudi Arabia, while Paramount’s owner himself is close to President Trump—an entirely different set of concerns for CNN, had Paramount won the bid for WBD and gone on to combine CNN and CBS under the editorial leadership of CBS’s new EIC, Bari Weiss.

“I’ve been asked by many of you what today’s news means for us,” CNN chairman Mark Thompson wrote Friday in an internal memo, per The New York Times. “And the answer is that it will enable us to continue to roll out our strategy to secure a great future for CNN by successfully navigating our digital transition.”

Thompson said CNN will keep working closely with Discovery Global’s eventual CEO Gunnar Wiedenfels, noting that a 2026 budget for CNN with “increased investment” is already in place.

How CNN’s ownership turmoil led to this moment

It’s not hard to see why CNN staffers are probably breathing a sigh of relief.

In less than a decade, the network has already been passed from one owner to the next. In 2016, Time Warner agreed to sell the company to AT&T. AT&T rebranded the media assets as WarnerMedia, with Jeff Zucker staying on as CNN’s president. It then spun off WarnerMedia in 2022 via a $43 billion merger with Discovery, creating Warner Bros. Discovery under CEO David Zaslav.

Zucker, popular among CNN’s rank-and-file, exited in early 2022, followed by Chris Licht’s turbulent 13-month tenure, before former New York Times CEO Mark Thompson was named chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide in August 2023.

When WBD in 2026 finishes spinning out Discovery Global, CNN will be a high-cost asset inside a business that’s in secular decline. And, for better or worse, it won’t have a Big Media parent company behind it.

Will Paramount try to buy CNN?

This is where things could get interesting.

Paramount CEO David Ellison reportedly wanted to buy all of WBD, compared to Netflix’s interest only in the streaming and film businesses. And while Netflix’s snub may have preserved CNN’s independence today, it also leaves open a clean path to some sort of Paramount–CNN deal later at a price the Ellisons would welcome.

To that latter point about price: When a global entertainment giant like Netflix takes a pass, it arguably makes the company that owns CNN more attractive for a buyer looking for a strategic bargain (not unlike a real-estate price correction triggered by lack of demand). What’s more, a Netflix–CNN tie-up would almost certainly have led to congressional hearings, not to mention objections from foreign regulators already skittish about Western news brands.

Open X today, and you’ll also encounter plenty of tweets from users convinced from the get-go that Netflix is going to “woke-ify” their favorite shows on HBO, so there’s also that.

For Paramount, there’s a case to be made that CNN is now a simpler asset to buy. A CBS News–CNN merger would instantly create one of the most powerful news operations in the country. The regulatory hurdles aren’t as high as they used to be, either, since both are national networks, and the FCC has shown flexibility as cable declines.

Long story short, CNN might have dodged the complications of a Netflix deal. But what happens if Paramount decides that it now wants to buy the 24/7 news network is still very much a live question.