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David Ellison has knocked out Warner Bros. Discovery, merging it with Paramount into the new Skydance Corp. Now the chatter around town is about the industry’s next megamerger.
In the current landscape, only one media
company of considerable size could be ripe for a takeover: NBCUniversal. Following its planned spinoff from Comcast in mid-2027, NBCU could fetch $60 billion from a motivated buyer, research firm Morningstar estimates. As for who that acquirer could be, industry sources uniformly point to Netflix as the leading candidate.
Netflix chief Ted Sarandos, after walking away from the streamer’s effort to acquire Warner Bros. and HBO, said his key takeaway was that “we really built our M&A muscle.” He hasn’t tipped his hand about what Netflix might pursue next, saying in April only that “we invest in the business both organically and opportunistically.”
Meanwhile, Comcast execs, in announcing the NBCU spinoff plans in June, said they weren’t splitting up the media company to ready it for a sale. But when pressed about the possibility of M&A after the separation, Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh, who’s set to become NBCU’s chief executive post-spin, suggested deals could be in the offing. As an independent company, it will “have the freedom now to explore adjacent businesses where we have the right to play,” he told Wall Street analysts.
Regarding speculation about deal scenarios for the independent NBCU, chief communications officer Jen Friedman said in a statement to Variety: “We have said from the beginning that we are not pursuing this spin for the purposes of M&A. Our plan for NBCU is to set the business up for growth, and we see a path to doing so given our industry-leading businesses in the most attractive segments of media, our differentiated strategy and our uniquely strong balance sheet.” Netflix declined to comment.
Over most of its 29-year history, Netflix shunned big M&A, preferring to stick to its knitting as it continued to enjoy strong subscriber and financial growth. But the calculus is different now: In the third quarter of 2026, top-line growth dropped to 11.8%, the lowest level in three years, and subscribers in the U.S. are spending less time with Netflix than they used to.
To jump-start its growth, “Netflix needs to make an acquisition,” says Terry Dugan, entertainment finance co-head of law firm Moore & Van Allen. “The only obvious suspect is NBCUniversal.” He says smaller players like Lionsgate, A24 or Neon on the movie side, or Starz or AMC Global Media on the TV side, simply wouldn’t be big enough to move the needle for Netflix in terms of boosting viewing on the service.
After Ellison’s capture of WB, “the pressure across the industry to be more scaled” — meaning assembling a larger collection of media assets and production firepower to compete on a global scale — “has never been higher,” says one senior studio exec. “People are feeling more pressure to consolidate. But it’s gotta be the right fit.”
Yes, Netflix is still turning a nice profit and delivering quarter-over-quarter growth. But the top brass became alarmed about the slowing pace. Sarandos and co-chief Greg Peters decided to overhaul its content leadership team, giving the boot to Bela Bajaria as chief content officer and to Dan Lin as head of film. The purge is a seeming concession by Netflix’s co-CEOs that the company is not delivering enough must-watch content — that the drop in U.S. engagement is not 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 relations,” Sarandos explained to Wall Street after the streamer unveiled its Q3 earnings on Oct. 20.
But a revamp of Netflix’s content lineup might not be enough to turn things around, and that has fueled speculation that it could be eyeing a soon-to-be-independent NBCU — particularly as it faces Skydance in the market. That idea has been reinforced by how fast Netflix clinched a deal valued at $72 billion for Warner Bros. and HBO’s streaming and studios businesses before Paramount’s sky-high offer for all of Warner Bros. Discovery won out.
“When Comcast first announced that it was going to spin off 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.
NBCU would for the most part fit in well with Netflix’s overall business. Peacock stood at 48 million subscribers as of the end of September, and fusing that with Netflix’s 325 million-plus subscriber base would be a win for both sides. 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 episodes of TV, including enormous 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 pacts with the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball. And NBCU has a significant theme parks business, trailing only Disney in size. NBCU’s operations also encompass Sky, the satellite TV platform that serves about 20 million subscribers in the U.K., Ireland and Italy.
“Netflix is looking at sports, theatrical and experiences. NBCU ticks all of those boxes,” says John Conca, telecom and media analyst at investment research firm Third Bridge.
Adds Zach Darrow, chairman and CEO of business law firm DarrowEverett, who leads its private equity, capital markets and securities practice: “Netflix has money to spend. It didn’t get the Warner Bros. deal but it showed it was willing to make a significant investment. They walked away when they hit their limit — they are a credible bidder for a library or studio.”
For Comcast, the spinoff is mostly financial maneuvering. Brian Roberts, Comcast chairman and co-CEO, and the Roberts family will remain the controlling shareholder of both Comcast and NBCUniversal after the separation. Cavanagh will be CEO of NBCU, with top lieutenants including Donna Langley, chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment, and Matt Strauss, chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group (which includes Peacock). Nonetheless, it is a symbolic shift for the media mogul family that made its fortune as one of the first firms to wire the country for cable TV.
Comcast leaders say they’re unwinding their NBCU ownership after more than 15 years so that the slimmed-down company will be valued on its own rather than being lumped in with Comcast’s capital-intensive cable and wireless telco business. In other words, Comcast believes NBCU is worth more if it’s unshackled from the parent company’s core cable systems biz.
Comcast expects the spinoff to be tax-free to shareholders. But under IRS rules, to avoid incurring steep capital gains taxes, NBCU and Comcast have to wait two years before selling out to a third party. That means it could be mid-2029 by the time NBCU is in play. However, if Netflix wants NBCU badly enough, its bankers and lawyers can likely get creative with a deal structure to address the tax problem. The timeline might encourage Netflix to try to reach a deal with Comcast to snap up NBCU in the next six months or so, before the formal separation from Comcast is complete.
There are other complicating factors with a prospective Netflix-NBCU deal. For one thing, Netflix would certainly not want to own the Sky business, because it’s centered on pay TV and broadband, says Morningstar analyst Matthew Dolgin. Netflix also has disavowed interest in linear TV. But Reed Hastings used to swear Netflix would never get into the advertising business either — before the company did just that in 2022. The addition of NBC’s entertainment and sports programming, Dolgin says, “would make the Netflix service stickier and give them more pricing power.”
Instead of an outright M&A deal, Netflix could turn to other types of business deals like bundling partnerships to try to bulk up, says Prof. Tammy Madsen, a professor of management at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. But, she adds, “If they want to move fast, it would be through acquisitions.” And again, NBC’s large stable of sports rights and other entertainment IP would give Netflix a wealth of new content to attract and retain subscribers.
Whether Netflix feels urgency to make a run at NBCU may depend on whether its investors are convinced Sarandos and Peters can stabilize the business without a big, transformative move. Netflix’s stock plunged after it signed the Warner Bros. deal — shareholders hated that the transaction would have loaded up $60 billion in new debt onto Netflix’s balance sheet. But perhaps NBCU will be the bullet Netflix needs to bite.
“Netflix is taking heat right now from Wall Street,” says a top Hollywood exec. “They are the streaming leader. And whatever happens, there will be the rationale for more combinations.”
