Sen. Ted Cruz Questions Witnesses on Netflix and Warner Bros. Transaction

Thank you. I want to start by having the record reflect that I'm amazed Senator Klobuchar managed to reference the terrific movie grumpy old man Well, it's sort of it's relevant to our workplace Thought of saying that but I You had the hanging punchline and and and and Amy I need I needed you to finish it because it does in fact Describe our place of work See how stories unite us Cruise can use a movie quote from literally anything to be situations. It's one of his superpowers. That's inconceivable All right This is an 83 billion dollar merger. It's a big deal Entertainment matters content matters Mr. Sarandos, how many subscribers does Netflix have in the United States? around 86,000 36 million sorry And if the merger goes center cruise, it's a north we reported north by North America saying this can So if the merger went through how many subscribers would you anticipate having? Yeah, we don't publicly disclose our HBO number but the HBO subscribers in the US are roughly 50 million But remember 80 80 percent of those subscribers already subscribed to Netflix. So there's significant overlap there So if you're at 90 million now with Netflix by any measure you'd be north of 100 million depending on the overlap That fair to say depending on the overlap in the retention. Yes It's a matter of basic economics Does more market power typically lead to higher prices or lower prices? Across which industry sir cross any industry. I think more market power Just gives you the ability but if you're not delivering the value you can never cash in on it You have a gentleman sitting behind you in the Monopoly outfit In your view are monopolies a good thing in America, no, sir, they're not should the American people be concerned about a monopoly in entertainment and Streaming just to be clear while monopolies are not good. We are nowhere near dominant. Let alone a monopoly We have 9% market share that will grow to 10 if you wanted to contort yourself But that's defining this that's defining the market the way you want novice obviously an antitrust assessment The market definition is critical in the streaming market paid subscription streaming. What percent do you have of the market? We just you know, it's a it's a for us. That would be kind of a fantasy construct. Okay, so you don't want to answer that No I'm just saying if you take YouTube out of the picture Which is the one that you seem to think is controversial would be about 18 percent plus 3 percent of 20, but but 21 percent It's another aspect of this merger that I think is raising significant concerns Which is an ideological aspect would you agree there's a definition there's a difference between entertainment and propaganda Yes, sir. I and many others on this committee have been concerned for a long time about censorship censorship in the media and censorship in Hollywood there Already seems to be only one acceptable Political view actually I want to ask did either of y'all watch the Grammys this week. I Did not just the tail end One simple question. Are we right now on stolen land? I Have no idea the history of this land of this where we're sitting today, nor do I send So that speaks volumes that neither of you are willing to say hell No We're not on stolen land and I will say it's the Grammys when you see an entertainer say Nobody is illegal while we're on stolen land and then you see entertainers leap to their feet clapping So excitedly at the notion that America's fundamentally illegitimate It starts to convey that the entertainment world is deeply Corrupt and I will point out that same singer who says no one is illegal on stolen land Promptly went back to her 14 million dollar mansion and and somehow that's stolen land She wasn't concerned about just the United States of America look Netflix has long been a left-wing company Your founder Reed Hastings is one of the biggest Democrat donors in the country Including giving millions recently to the massive gerrymander in California making it one of the most gerrymandered states in the Union Because your founder desperately wants a Democrat House of Representatives Susan Rice from the Obama White House is on your board of directors You guys gave 50 million dollars to the Obamas as far as I can tell to produce no discernible content whatsoever How would you tell a Texan sitting at home to feel comfortable? CNN is already a dumpster fire There's nothing resembling objectivity. There's nothing resembling journalism anymore How are people at home just how should they feel even remotely confident that if this merger happens The combined entity would not simply be a propaganda outlet pushing one particular political view With much greater market power than you have now Well, so we would fail we would fail pushing a political view or propaganda. We we deliver entertainment to consumers Our consumers see our business pretty much the way they see the America About 40% conservative about 40% liberal about 20% don't know and they what do we do? But when we turn out when they turn on TV They're tuned in to be entertained and if we fail to entertain them by trying to promote propaganda or something out or something anything Other than entertainment we fail. Mr. Campbell same question We have a very broad range of content across not only HBO max We need to appeal to all audiences Our content ranges from hard knocks from the NFL to shows like deadliest catch and gold rush. It's a very broad Collection of programming that represents broad interests across America You have a wide range of programming on HBO name one program that is designed to appeal to conservatives We don't design our programming to appeal. I can think of a lot that are designed to go to liberals name one None of our shows designed to go to any political group There is a designed to appeal to really John Oliver's not designed to appeal to a certain group It's a it's a program that For which they just said none of your program is it? Let me ask you. Do you think CNN is fair and balanced? I Do believe CNN is it fair when CNN showed riots and fires behind them and you put a Chiron? mostly peaceful but fiery protests Was that journalism Sir, I'm not involved with CNN. And in fact, they're not part of this transaction, but they have an independent Editorial board they have independent news gathering. We don't direct their only and they have no independence other than hating Donald Trump Which is why their viewership numbers have plummeted because they don't actually report news They instead engage in very biased propaganda and I will say the truest words You said a minute ago is when you said with respect to mr. Sarandos Well, he and I see the world in very much the same way. That is exactly the problem that in the world of journalism It should not be propaganda in the world of entertainment. There is a reason Why entertainers who are even slightly right-of-center get blackballed in Hollywood writers get blackballed in Hollywood actors get blackballed in Hollywood and I've heard nothing today to give me any confidence that this merger would do anything other than make that problem much much worse Thank you Thank you very much, sir