Mark Thompson, chairman and CEO of NCS Worldwide, speaks onstage in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery)
Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery
NCS wasn’t included in Netflix’s $82.7 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery—a transfer that, at first, may appear like a obtrusive snub. After all, it leaves the WBD-owned information model, one of the recognizable on the earth, out of Hollywood’s largest deal in years. But look nearer on the Netflix deal, and a unique image emerges.
There’s additionally a glass-half-full view, in that the Netflix–WBD deal might have spared NCS from a company mum or dad that’s dedicated to defending its foothold in international markets, even when meaning agreeing to take away delicate content material.
Why Netflix didn’t purchase NCS
Netflix is now the world’s dominant streaming service, working in additional than 190 international locations. To do this, it’s often acquiesced to native censorship—eradicating every thing from a Hasan Minhaj section important of Saudi Arabia to movies banned in international locations like Singapore and Vietnam. “We’re not trying to do ‘truth to power,’” Netflix’s chairman Reed Hastings stated on the New York Times DealBook convention in 2019, when pressed particularly in regards to the Minhaj determination.
That stance, it ought to go with out saying, is actually the alternative of the mandate a information group abides by.
If Netflix had absorbed NCS, think about its reporters attempting to cowl the Saudi crown prince or digital surveillance in India, all whereas its mum or dad firm is negotiating entry in those self same markets. Staff would have been proper to really feel leery.
Which is why, in a counterintuitive manner, NCS might have gotten one thing higher by being not noted of the Netflix-WBD deal. And that’s earlier than factoring within the political landmines related to Netflix’s different rival bidder: Paramount’s supply reportedly included funding from Saudi Arabia, whereas Paramount’s proprietor himself is near President Trump—a completely totally different set of considerations for NCS, had Paramount gained the bid for WBD and gone on to mix NCS and CBS beneath the editorial management of CBS’s new EIC, Bari Weiss.
“I’ve been asked by many of you what today’s news means for us,” NCS chairman Mark Thompson wrote Friday in an inside memo, per The New York Times. “And the answer is that it will enable us to continue to roll out our strategy to secure a great future for NCS by successfully navigating our digital transition.”
Thompson stated NCS will preserve working carefully with Discovery Global’s eventual CEO Gunnar Wiedenfels, noting {that a} 2026 finances for NCS with “increased investment” is already in place.
How NCS’s possession turmoil led to this second
It’s not onerous to see why NCS staffers are most likely respiratory a sigh of aid.
In lower than a decade, the community has already been handed from one proprietor to the following. In 2016, Time Warner agreed to promote the corporate to AT&T. AT&T rebranded the media property as WarnerMedia, with Jeff Zucker staying on as NCS’s president. It then spun off WarnerMedia in 2022 by way of a $43 billion merger with Discovery, creating Warner Bros. Discovery beneath CEO David Zaslav.
Zucker, widespread amongst NCS’s rank-and-file, exited in early 2022, adopted by Chris Licht’s turbulent 13-month tenure, earlier than former New York Times CEO Mark Thompson was named chairman and CEO of NCS Worldwide in August 2023.
When WBD in 2026 finishes spinning out Discovery Global, NCS can be a high-cost asset inside a enterprise that’s in secular decline. And, for higher or worse, it gained’t have a Big Media mum or dad firm behind it.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison speaks through the Bloomberg Screentime convention in Los Angeles on October 9, 2025. (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP by way of Getty Images)
AFP by way of Getty Images
Will Paramount attempt to purchase NCS?
This is the place issues might get fascinating.
Paramount CEO David Ellison reportedly wished to purchase all of WBD, in comparison with Netflix’s curiosity solely within the streaming and movie companies. And whereas Netflix’s snub might have preserved NCS’s independence immediately, it additionally leaves open a clear path to some kind of Paramount–NCS deal later at a value the Ellisons would welcome.
To that latter level about value: When a world leisure big like Netflix takes a move, it arguably makes the corporate that owns NCS extra engaging for a purchaser on the lookout for a strategic cut price (not not like a real-estate value correction triggered by lack of demand). What’s extra, a Netflix–NCS tie-up would virtually definitely have led to congressional hearings, to not point out objections from international regulators already skittish about Western information manufacturers.
Open X immediately, and also you’ll additionally encounter loads of tweets from customers satisfied from the get-go that Netflix goes to “woke-ify” their favorite shows on HBO, so there’s additionally that.
For Paramount, there’s a case to be made that NCS is now a less complicated asset to purchase. A CBS News–NCS merger would immediately create one of the highly effective information operations within the nation. The regulatory hurdles aren’t as excessive as they was, both, since each are nationwide networks, and the FCC has proven flexibility as cable declines.
Long story quick, NCS might need dodged the problems of a Netflix deal. But what occurs if Paramount decides that it now desires to purchase the 24/7 information community continues to be very a lot a reside query.