Big mergers always arrive with the same polished promises: efficiency, scale, innovation, consumer benefit. I have heard that script many times – often delivered confidently, rarely proven true. Having reviewed major transactions as attorney general, I know how these stories usually end. The benefits are always projected into the future. The market power is immediate. And once competition tips, it almost never tips back.
That reality is why I joined a bipartisan group of nearly one dozen former attorneys general this week in urging the Department of Justice to take a hard, skeptical look at the reported acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Netflix. This is not about ideology or party. It is about whether antitrust law still has force when a single deal would lock in power at this scale.
At its core, the transaction would fuse the world’s dominant streaming distributor with one of the most significant producers of film and television content. That is precisely the kind of vertical integration antitrust law exists to examine before it becomes irreversible.
Think of Netflix as the front door and Warner Bros. Discovery as one of the biggest factories for what comes through that door. If the same company controls both, it doesn’t have to “ban” anyone to win—it just has to nudge the system its way.
A lack of marketplace competition in the streaming industry has already allowed Netflix to raise Kentuckians’ monthly streaming bills by 125 percent since 2014. If it is allowed to acquire another one of its competitors, your subscription price may very well go up some more.
When one company controls access to audiences – as well as a large share of what they watch – the balance of power shifts fast. Independent producers face fewer bidders. Writers, directors, and crews have less room to negotiate. Rivals are forced to operate on the dominant firm’s terms – or not at all.
For a state like Kentucky, that concentration has real consequences. Our film and television sector may not resemble Hollywood, but it is meaningful and expanding. In 2024, motion picture and sound recording activity contributed more than $200 million to Kentucky’s economy. Productions have taken place in roughly two-thirds of our counties, often in rural communities that rarely see high-value investment.
Kentucky’s incentive program rests on a straightforward premise: competition attracts production, production builds capacity, and capacity creates durable jobs. That system depends on studios and distributors competing independently – choosing where to film, whom to hire, and which projects to support.
Excessive concentration undermines that model. When decision-making is centralized inside a single firm, production becomes more standardized and less responsive to regional opportunity. Smaller states lose leverage. Independent producers lose options. The local ecosystems that sustain film economies weaken.
Competition policy is not meant to ensure the comfort of large incumbents. It exists to prevent any one company from acquiring the power to dictate terms across an entire market.
It is encouraging to see bipartisan scrutiny of this deal in Congress—and to hear President Trump signal skepticism. That caution is warranted. Deals of this magnitude do not merely shape quarterly earnings. They shape industries for decades.
The Justice Department should do its job and thoroughly scrutinize this proposed deal — and Kentucky’s elected representatives in Congress should remain mindful that our consumers and film and television industry have a significant stake in the outcome of the debate over this proposed acquisition.
Jack Conway, a Democrat, served as the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s 49th attorney general. He is now an attorney in Louisville.