Paramount Skydance victory in Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war came after failed Netflix exec visit to win over White House

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos failed Thursday to convince a skeptical Trump administration to approve his proposed takeover of Warner Bros.Discovery – and with that, his nearly done deal to buy WBD’s streaming service and studio went into a death spiral.Late Thursday, WBD deemed a revised bid of $31 a share from rival Paramount Skydance a “reasonably superior offer,” forcing Netflix to pull its bid thus ending a six-month takeover battle that has captivated Wall Street and the media business.The backdrop of the announcement was the increasingly insurmountable regulatory hurdles Netflix faced in dealing with the Trump administration.

As first reported by The Post, earlier Thursday, Sarandos sat with a skeptical Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Justice Department antitrust officials to try to convince the administration not to oppose the deal on antitrust grounds.He argued that combining Netflix’s No.

1 streaming service with WBD’s No.3 largest streamer wouldn’t constitute a streaming monopoly.Sarandos was said to have sought a meeting with President Trump, his second one since the bidding war for WBD began and the president’s absence may have foreshadowed his tenuous position with the administration.

Sources tell The Post that the White House was unmoved by Sarandos’ arguments, that competition from social media negates their antitrust concerns, and that the administration would oppose the deal.That left the Netflix chief with a choice: he could litigate a decision by the DOJ antitrust division – a two-year process with an uncertain outcome – or he could walk.Late Thursday, he chose the latter.“We’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match,” Sarandos and and co-CEO Greg Peters said in a statement.

“This transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not...