Streaming shake-up: How Netflix/Paramount battle for Warner Bros could affect your viewing content

There's a corporate battle playing out in the US over who'll ultimately gain control of film and television giant Warner Bros Discovery.

The conglomerate turned down proposals from streaming service Paramount Skydance, before announcing a deal to sell parts of its business to Netflix.

What Netflix is after is Warner Bros' studio and streaming divisions.

Then, Paramount launched a hostile takeover bid, with new CEO David Ellison taking his suit directly to shareholders, as the BBC reports.

The offer from Netflix for parts of Warner Bros is for around $72 billion, while Paramount's counter offer values the company as a whole at over $108 billion.

While subscribers can only just watch the wheeling and dealing going on, the outcome is likely to affect their viewing content.

Stephen Grootes gets some insightfrom Tymon Smith, a reviewer and arts and culture features writer.

As Smith puts it, the major prize here for both Netflix and Paramount is Warner Bros and the extensive archives of HBO.

"And there will be some subscriber benefits from whoever wins the battle as far as Warner Bros' streaming service HBO Max is concerned, although there is a lot of overlap for people who subscribe to both Netflix and HBO Max, and then vice versa for Paramount."

"Also, Paramount want everything, including the television side of things so they would then gain control also of CNN and Discovery products."

Smith believes a deal with Netflix would be the better one, in as far as subscribers would get more access to better products at one place.

This would likely mean an increase in subscriber fees, he concedes, also pointing out that these are currently limited by the rising cost of living all over the world, which puts a damper on how much streaming services can hike fees.

He refers to a Paramount 'win' as the more dangerous option, in view of how since the Skydance merger, Paramount has 'ent over backwards' for US President Donald Trump.

"The idea of Ellison and Paramount Skydance being in charge of something like CNN doesn't seem to be a good thing for the future of what's left of the idea of free, fair and objective media."

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to Smith's analysis