Barry Diller, media mogul formerly of ABC, Fox, and Paramount, is speaking out, calling the dual writers and actors strikes in Hollywood “catastrophic” to the industry, while also suggesting Netflix should be removed from the discussions, according to CNBC.
What’s Happening:
- Barry Diller, who once held top roles at Fox, ABC Entertainment, and Paramount, appeared on the podcast, On With Kara Swisher, where he called on the legacy Hollywood studios to end the writers and actors strikes currently taking place in Hollywood.
- Diller suggested that failure to end the strikes soon would be “catastrophic” to the industry.
- In the same episode, Diller also says that the strikes will only strengthen Netflix during an already troublesome time for legacy media, saying “The strike does one thing, and one thing only, it strengthens Netflix and weakens the others,” advising studios like Disney and others to cut Netflix out of the negotiations, adding “They should certainly get out of the room with their deepest, fiercest and almost conclusive enemy, Netflix, and probably Apple and Amazon. He said the legacy studios, actors and writers should be “natural allies” given their century of working together.
- The comments echo sentiments Diller shared earlier on an episode of CBS’s Face The Nation, where he said the strikes could cause a domino effect that could lead to “an absolute collapse of the entire industry.”
- In his appearance on the podcast, he elaborated more, saying if the strikes last through the end of the year the lack of fresh content by the spring or summer of 2024 on their streaming services will lead to subscriber cancellations and revenue losses. “When they have to gear up to make more programming to get back subscribers, they won’t have the revenue base to be able to produce,” Diller told Swisher. “So that is kinda catastrophic.”
- “There was a very recent attempt to get it on track with the WGA, which I gather collapsed in the last couple of days,” Diller said on Swisher’s podcast, which was recorded in late August. He added it “looks bleak” that the strike could end by September.
- Recent discussions with the writers union have reportedly included a sit down with Disney CEO Bob Iger, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.
- Diller said in the podcast that legacy media should take some of its “shows and creativity and build our networks back up. It’s there for the take.”
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