What was supposed to be a straightforward antitrust hearing about Netflix's Warner Bros. acquisition turned into political theater on Tuesday. Republican senators blindsided co-CEO Ted Sarandos with culture war attacks about "woke" ideology in children's programming, while YouTube - the actual streaming giant with 12.7% of US viewership versus Netflix's 9% - walked away without a single question.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos walked into a Senate office building Tuesday expecting tough questions about market concentration. What he got instead was a masterclass in political theater that completely missed the actual streaming elephant in the room.
The hearing, ostensibly about Netflix's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, quickly devolved into what The Verge described as a "performative Republican attack" on the platform's content choices. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) kicked things off after some initial questions about residual payments: "Why is it that so much of Netflix content for children promotes a transgender ideology?"
The claim - that "almost half" of Netflix's kids' programming contains what Hawley called "transgender ideology" - echoed a months-old pressure campaign from Elon Musk, who'd urged X users to cancel their Netflix subscriptions over what he termed a "transgender woke agenda." Never mind that the shows Musk cited had been canceled years ago.
"Our business intent is to entertain the world," Sarandos responded calmly during the hearing. "It is not to have a political agenda." But the Republican senators weren't done. Ashley Moody (R-FL) and Eric Schmitt (R-MO) piled on, dredging up Netflix's 2020 statement following George Floyd's murder and the French film , which sparked conservative outrage years back. Ted Cruz (R-TX) even veered into Grammy Awards territory, asking Sarandos about Billie Eilish's "no one is illegal on stolen land" comment.
