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Sarandos & Peters allay fears about proposed WBD acquisition at UBS Global TMT Conference

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MUMBAI: Netflix is betting the house on Hollywood heritage. At the UBS Global TMT conference on 8 December 2025, co-chief executives Theodore Sarandos and Gregory K. Peters unveiled their audacious plan to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, creating a content colossus with $30bn in annual spending—dwarfing every rival in the entertainment universe.

The deal, which Paramount’s Skydance immediately tried to gatecrash with a rival bid, promises something radical: Netflix keeping Warner Bros’ theatrical releases exactly as they are. “We didn’t buy this company to destroy that value,” declared  Sarandos, channeling more preservation society than streaming disruptor. Films like Minecraft, Superman and Sinners would still debut in cinemas before landing on Netflix—a striking concession from a company that once treated theatres like analogue relics.

The numbers tell a fascinating story of scale and modesty combined. According to Nielsen data presented at the conference, Netflix commands just eight per cent of US television viewing hours, trailing YouTube’s 13 per cent. Add Warner Bros Discovery’s Max service, and that figure barely budges to nine per cent—hardly monopolistic territory.

“We’re still behind what Paramount combined with WBD would be at 14 per cent,” noted Peters, making the case that regulators should wave this through without breaking stride.

But the real intrigue lies in what Netflix isn’t planning to do. Whilst rivals slash content budgets and sack thousands, Netflix intends to keep Warner Bros’ three distinct businesses—theatrical studio, television production for third parties, and HBO’s prestige brand—operating largely as is.
 

“No redundancies currently,” stressed Peters. The company frames this as job creation, not the usual merger math of synergies through surgery. Sarandos took a pointed swipe at Paramount’s competing bid, which promised $6 billion in synergies: “Where do you think synergies come from? Cutting jobs.”

HBO will get particularly special treatment. Rather than force-feeding it into Netflix’s general entertainment maw, the plan is to let it double down on prestige television. “They have been doing gymnastics to make themselves into a general entertainment brand,” observed Sarandos. “Under this transaction, they don’t have to do that anymore.”

The co-chief executives sounded remarkably relaxed about regulatory approval, despite president Donald Trump’s recent public comments on media consolidation. Sarandos revealed he has spoken to the president “many times since the election” about entertainment industry challenges. The pitch? Netflix has employed 140,000 people in US original productions from 2020 to 2024, contributed $125 billion to the American economy, and is building a $1 billion studio on a former military base in New Jersey. “The president’s interest in this are the same as ours, which is to create and protect jobs,” Sarandos insisted.

The deal’s architecture reveals Netflix’s confidence in its core competencies whilst acknowledging its limits. The company identified two “highly executable” value centres: extracting more from Warner Bros’ title library through Netflix’s superior distribution, and optimising HBO as an additional pricing tier—skills Netflix honed whilst building its advertising business. A third phase of IP exploitation exists, admitted Peters, but “we actually don’t know exactly what those are. So we didn’t give ourselves credit for them in the valuation model.”

On advertising, where Netflix projects revenues will more than double in 2025, the Warner Bros content provides premium inventory advertisers crave. The company now runs its own ad technology stack, having added Amazon as a demand-side platform and rolled out interactive ad formats. By 2027,  Peters promised, Netflix will deploy “nondeterministic targeting model-based approaches”—the sort of algorithmic wizardry that makes Madison Avenue swoon.

Gaming represents another frontier where Warner Bros assets could prove useful, though again Netflix hasn’t baked this into its deal mathematics. The company’s strategy has crystallised around immersive narrative games based on owned IP (imagine deeper Squid Game universes), safe kids’ games without in-app payments, classic game IP like Red Dead Redemption on mobile, and social “family game night” experiences on television. Warner Bros’ gaming studios and properties like Mortal Kombat could accelerate this, but  Peters was careful to note: “We actually didn’t attribute any value from the get-go.”

The combined entity’s content spending trajectory remains aggressive. Netflix currently spends $18 billion annually on content and plans to grow that figure. Post-merger, the $30 billion combined spend will keep climbing. “We have been growing content spend and expanding margin as a stand-alone,” emphasised  Sarandos, “and we’ve modelled to do that in the future as well.”

The confidence stems from Netflix’s mere eight per cent US viewership share—or under 10 per cent in every country it serves. “We believe there’s ample opportunity to essentially continue to grow that value,” said  Peters.

The fourth quarter slate showcases Netflix’s current formula: Stranger Things returning for its final season, Knives Out 3: Wake Up Dead Man, and buzzy newcomers like Black Doves. The 2026 pipeline includes Greta Gerwig’s Narnia, new seasons of Bridgerton and One Piece, and films from Charlize Theron and Matt Damon. Live programming expands beyond US time zones, with the World Baseball Classic in Japan signalling Netflix’s global ambitions for real-time events.

On artificial intelligence, the co-chief executives struck a notably cautious tone about generative content. “It has to be better first,” insisted  Sarandos. “If it is just faster and cheaper without being better, it’s going to be bad for everybody.” 

The company sees AI enhancing three areas: member personalisation and conversational search, advertising creative and targeting, and production efficiencies—but only when it improves storytelling quality rather than merely cutting costs.

Management continuity at Warner Bros appears secure, given the lack of redundant business units. “We love these businesses. We like the leadership,” said Peters. The studio, television production arm and HBO will keep their leaders and continue operating independently—a marked contrast to typical merger playbooks that promise efficiency through elimination.

As for complexity concerns about bolting Warner Bros’ theatrical, licensing and premium cable businesses onto Netflix’s streaming-native model, both executives dismissed such worries. Netflix has repeatedly added new dimensions—original series, then films, then unscripted, then 50 countries of production, then live events, then advertising, then gaming. “Simplicity was an early super power,” acknowledged Sarandos, but “today, I think it’s enabled us to do things that are really much more complicated but also chase bigger prizes.”

The deal’s ultimate test will come from regulators, rival bidders and, eventually, subscribers voting with their viewing hours and wallets. But Netflix’s pitch is seductively straightforward: take Hollywood’s most storied studio, keep what makes it special, add Netflix’s distribution muscle and data science, and create something larger than the sum of its reels. “We’re looking forward to delivering all the value that we see in that deal for everyone,” promised Peters.

In streaming’s great consolidation game, Netflix is betting its blockbuster reputation that old Hollywood and new technology can finally share the screen.

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Netflix celebrates a decade in India with Shah Rukh Khan-narrated tribute film

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MUMBAI: Netflix is celebrating ten years in India with a slick anniversary film voiced by Shah Rukh Khan, a nostalgic sprint through a decade that rewired how the country watches stories. The campaign doubles as both tribute and reminder: streaming did not just enter Indian homes, it quietly rearranged them.

Roll back to 2016 and television still dictated schedules. Viewers waited weeks, sometimes months, for favourite films to appear on prime time. Family-friendly filters narrowed options further, and piracy often filled the gaps. Then Netflix arrived, softly but decisively, carrying a catalogue of international titles rarely seen in Indian theatres and placing them a click away. Old blockbusters and new releases suddenly coexisted on the same digital shelf.

The platform’s real inflection point came in 2018 with Sacred Games, a breakout series that refused to dilute India’s grit for global comfort. Audiences embraced its unvarnished tone, signalling readiness for stories that did not need box-office validation or censorship compromises. What followed was a steady procession of relatable narratives. Competitive-exam anxiety fuelled Kota Factory. College relationships unfolded in Mismatched. Everyday pressures, not grand spectacle, proved bankable.

Language barriers thinned as foreign series arrived with Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubbing, expanding viewership beyond urban English-speaking pockets. Marketing mirrored the shift. For global releases such as Squid Game, Netflix leaned on regional creators and influencers to localise buzz and make international content feel native.

The library widened beyond fiction. Documentaries stepped out of festival circuits into living rooms. Stand-up comedians found scale. Established filmmakers, including Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Heeramandi, embraced the platform’s long-form canvas. Subscriber numbers swelled to 12.37 million in India, according to Demandsage, and behaviour followed suit. Late-night binges became routine. Friday release rituals loosened. Watch parties turned solitary screens into social events.

Economics demanded adjustment. Early subscription pricing carried a premium aura that deterred many households. Over time, Netflix recalibrated plans to align with Indian spending sensibilities, conceding that accessibility is as critical as content. To extend momentum around marquee titles, the platform also experimented with split-season releases, stretching anticipation and watch time.

The anniversary film, narrated by Shah Rukh Khan, captures the linguistic shift that mirrors the cultural one: from “Netflix pe kya dekha?” to “Netflix pe kya dekhein?” The question moved from recounting the past to planning the next binge. In ten years, Netflix morphed from foreign entrant to familiar fixture, exporting Indian stories abroad while importing global ones home. The remote no longer waits; it chooses, clicks and moves on. In the streaming age, patience is out, playlists are in, and the next episode is always one tap away.

 

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e-commerce

Tulasi Mohan Padavala elevated to Associate Director at Blinkit

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Gurugram: Blinkit has elevated Tulasi Mohan Padavala to associate director, capping a three-year climb inside the quick-commerce firm and signalling confidence in an executive steeped in ecommerce, category management and on-ground sales execution.

Padavala shared the update publicly, saying he was “happy to share” the promotion, a succinct announcement that nevertheless marks a notable step up within one of India’s fastest-moving delivery platforms. The new role follows nearly three years at Blinkit, where he most recently served as senior category manager from February 2023 to January 2026, focusing on strategic sourcing and assortment planning.

The promotion places Padavala in Blinkit’s mid-to-senior leadership tier at a time when the company continues to expand its rapid-delivery footprint and sharpen category economics. His brief tenure as associate director began in January 2026, with responsibilities expected to span category growth, supplier strategy and cross-functional execution.

Before Blinkit, Padavala spent a short but intensive stint as global ecommerce manager at Wholsum Foods, the parent of Slurrp Farm and Millé, between November 2022 and February 2023. There he worked on digital marketplace expansion and online retail operations, adding a direct-to-consumer and international ecommerce layer to his résumé.

A longer stretch at Amazon shaped much of his cross-border commerce experience. As business development manager for Amazon’s India Global Selling programme from February 2021 to October 2022, Padavala helped Indian D2C brands enter the North American market. His remit ranged from seller recruitment and category revenue management to coordination with industry bodies, regulators and logistics partners. Key outcomes included launching more than 50 D2C consumable brands in the United States, driving a cumulative gross merchandise sales figure of $1m in FY21-22, tripling sales for participating brands during Prime Day through marketing and visibility levers, growing the monthly recurring revenue of more than 10 newly launched sellers from zero to an average $20,000 each, and negotiating ecommerce partnerships that reduced initial launch costs by 20 per cent.

Padavala’s earlier career was forged in the field rather than the dashboard. At Coffee Day Group, he spent close to five years across multiple sales leadership roles. As sales manager in the Greater Delhi Area from July 2019 to January 2021, he led vending-machine and consumables sales for small and medium enterprises with a team of more than 15 assistant and territory sales managers, managed over 2,000 clients, drove upselling and cross-selling, maintained channel partnerships and ensured timely collections. Prior to that, he served as area sales manager in Delhi between May 2018 and June 2019, handling south and east Delhi markets, and earlier in Hyderabad from April 2016 to May 2018, where he led Andhra Pradesh sales for the vending division, supervised service and logistics functions and managed a base of more than 600 machines with a four-member team.

His professional arc began with internships that combined analytics and process improvement. At Boehringer Ingelheim in 2015, Padavala analysed the impact of brand extension on the drug Pradaxa, identified key performance indicators through market research and assessed sales forecasts, recommendations that drew positive responses in pilot studies. Earlier, at Genpact in 2014, he automated manual sales-order backlog reporting using VBA and Excel, increasing efficiency by 800 per cent, and worked on benchmarking metrics within supply-chain planning processes.

From automating spreadsheets to scaling cross-border ecommerce and now steering quick-commerce categories, Padavala’s trajectory tracks the evolution of India’s retail economy itself. Blinkit’s bet is clear: blend data, discipline and delivery speed. The promotion formalises what his career already suggests. In the race for instant commerce, experience that moves from warehouse floors to global dashboards is no longer optional. It is the engine.

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e-commerce

Bharatpe plays a super over as Rohit Sharma fronts T20 push

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MUMBAI: When the stakes rise and seconds matter, even payments need a match-winning finish. That’s the cue for Bharatpe, which has rolled out Super Over, a nationwide campaign led by Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma, timed neatly ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

The campaign draws a straight line between the pulse of cricket and the pace of everyday digital payments. A new brand film taps into India’s emotional bond with the game, while positioning UPI as the quiet hero that keeps daily transactions ticking along at match speed.

As part of Super Over, users making payments via Bharatpe UPI can bag daily rewards ranging from match tickets and signed merchandise to a chance to watch a T20 World Cup fixture alongside Rohit Sharma himself. Both consumers and merchants are also assured Zillion Coins on every eligible transaction, adding a little extra sparkle to routine payments.

Behind the scenes, Bharatpe is also batting for safety. The platform is backed by Bharatpe Shield, a fraud-protection layer designed to offer enhanced security, comprehensive coverage and dedicated support aimed at helping users transact with greater confidence as digital payments scale up.

Announcing the campaign, Bharatpe head of marketing Shilpi Kapoor said Super Over mirrors the aspirations of everyday Indians, combining speed, security and instant rewards to make UPI transactions feel both reliable and rewarding.

The campaign will play out across digital platforms, social media and on-ground activations nationwide, staying live through the T20 World Cup season proof that in cricket, as in payments, timing is everything.

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