Over an intense six-week period last fall, Netflix went from an initial phone call between co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav to sealing an $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner Bros.’ streaming and studios business. But David Ellison refused to give up, and ultimately his Paramount Skydance outbid Netflix with an $111 billion offer for the entirety of WBD.
So the news Monday that Comcast plans to carve off NBCUniversal (together with Sky) as an independently traded entity immediately made people wonder: Would Netflix go back to the M&A trenches to try to win a deal for NBCU?
After all, separated from Comcast, NBCU looks similar — kind of, sort of — to the Warner Bros. streaming and studios businesses that Netflix had made a multibillion-dollar bet on. Both have streaming services (Peacock and HBO Max) that would benefit from Netflix’s much larger scale, coupled with TV and film production studios. Also note that Comcast was in the game: The company in December 2025 formally entered a bid to buy the Warner Bros. streaming and studios assets with a “headline price” of $35.43 per WBD share.
After the spin-off announcement, Comcast execs firmly denied that the separation of the cable and NBCU/Sky businesses signaled expected M&A actions. Comcast chairman and co-CEO Brian Roberts said, “Absolutely not,” and co-chief Mike Cavanagh (who is slated to become CEO of the stand-alone NBCU) said, “Definitely not.”
