Netflix blockbuster deal

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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

Among Kudassine at 16 GMT on Friday, the 5th of December, these are our main stories.

Netflix has agreed to buy Warner Bros.'s streaming and studio business, potentially paving the way for a radical reshaping of the U.S. media industry.

President Putin says Russia is ready to provide uninterrupted fuel supplies to India, which is facing heavy US pressure to stop buying oil from Moscow.

The German parliament has voted in favor of reinstating military service. It will be voluntary, but could eventually become compulsory if too few people sign up.

Also in this podcast, the largest study of the impact of deep sea mining has found that it causes significant damage to animal life on the ocean floor.

And with economic reforms cancelled and national debt soaring, we hear from experts on the uncertain political future of France.

Economically speaking, they are stupid, but the market at one moment will oblige them to take decisions.

And we preview the draw for the 2026 FIFA Football World Cup, which takes place today in Washington.

We begin with a huge deal set to dramatically reshape the US film and media landscape.

After complex and competitive negotiations, Netflix has agreed to buy Warner Brothers streaming and studio business for $72 billion.

Jesse Wittick is the international TV co-editor for the entertainment media website Deadline. He told my colleague James Kumarasami about the deal.

Effectively, what you're seeing here is the streaming assets and the studio of Warner Brothers, the venerable Hollywood business, switching hands in joining the Netflix streaming service.

So So it's quite a symbolic moment, really, in that you've got a streaming service taking over one of America's kind of traditional media companies.

Yeah, so sort of the minnow that might have feared being sort of eaten by the bigger fish is

the one that's doing the eating now. Precisely.

I mean, actually, in 2010, a former Warner Brothers boss, a guy called Jeff Buchers, said that it was asked about Netflix coming for traditional media and he described them as

like the Albanian army trying to take over the world. So it seems like the Albanian army, in fact, are doing so.
I mean critics clearly want regulators to look at this closely, don't they?

There are warnings that this is going to be some kind of mega power that will, I guess, keep others out. In terms of approval, what has to happen now? Is it all straightforward? Well, not at all.

So this deal, there's been various people looking to buy. Paramount and Comcast, two other big U.S.
companies, were involved in the auction for Warner Brothers.

And in order for the deal to go through, you'll need the Department of Justice and the FTC, which is another big regulator in the US, to approve of that.

Both of those obviously are departments of Trump's government. And there is some talk within US media that he certainly has preferred Paramount as a buyer.

He hasn't said anything specifically on that. He may well do today, but there is some speculation there.
So it's definitely not an easy road for Netflix from here on out. Right.

Well, if it does go ahead, then what are we looking at? How is this going to potentially change the whole media landscape?

Well, first and foremost, you'll have a global streaming operation that will have about 450 million subscribers worldwide.

So that's the Netflix subscribers and those for HBO Max, which is the Warner Brothers Discovery streaming service. That's obviously puts them in a massively dominant position and

it's going to be discussed, I think, at sort of top level.

But you'll also have the Hollywood Studio, which is obviously one of the big producers in the world, which makes the likes of Harry Potter, Made Succession, all sorts of things over the years.

The channels business that Warner Brothers Discovery owns won't be involved, actually. So that will spin out first and then the deal will close.

But ultimately, you're going to have an absolutely gigantic media organization. And I guess, is it too early to say what the impact could be on viewers, but what difference they might notice?

Well, it may not be for viewers, but certainly in terms of the cinema, there could be issues because Netflix has never been particularly keen on releasing its films

in cinemas, which it has done. And exec noted earlier on that they've released 30 this year, but they tend to try and reduce the window.
So, the amount of time that the

film is only available in the cinema to as kind of short a point as they can. And there's,

you know, so you may well see films coming onto streaming services quicker or fewer films at the cinema. Jesse Wittak.
Next to India.

A military salute there in India, greeting Vladimir Putin, who's been meeting the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It's Mr.

Putin's first visit to the country since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The two leaders met for a few hours, with Russia hoping India continues buying Russian oil, a key source of funding for the war.

Despite coming under Western pressure to end the trade, speaking to the media through an interpreter, here's a little of what Mr. Putin had to say on that.

Also, via an interpreter, Mr. Modi, spoke of the desire for peace in Ukraine.

Today, we also discuss regional and global issues. With regard to Ukraine, India has stood for peace from the beginning.

We welcome all

efforts being made to find a peaceful and lasting solution to this matter.

India has always stood ready to contribute to these efforts and will remain ready to contribute in the future as well.

Both sides are also finalising new business and arms deals. Our daily correspondent, Davina Gupta, gave us a sense of the atmosphere.

The messaging from both leaders has been very warm and very focused on economic ties. They have two numbers for everyone, which was $100 billion worth of trade by 2030, and that's an ambitious target.

We just heard how Mr. Putin said that he wants those fuel shipments shipments to continue to come to India because India has been buying almost 40% of its overall oil needs from Russia.

So essentially, sending billions of dollars to Russia through that trade. They're also firming up long-term supply deals for fertilizers, for liquefied natural gas.

And then there was also discussion about people-to-people movement, India easing visa rules for Russians to come to India, and also Russia asking for skilled labor force like engineers and doctors to come to Russia to fill fill a labour shortage gap that the country is witnessing.

We also saw some agreements at the business forum that I attended on education, agriculture and even natural mineral sites.

So that's something that both countries are focusing on when it comes to trade.

And I guess underlying all of this, it does help to give Russia its finances for a war effort that it's currently undergoing.

Well that's the part that Delhi is finding harder to explain bleakly because India's purchases of Russian crude have been a financial lifeline for Moscow.

But it is because India is one of the biggest buyers for that.

The West has been arguing that that money ultimately supports Russia's war economy.

While India says it's acting in its own national interest, it wants to keep energy affordable for its billion-plus population.

And it has been seeing that tension rising with its other trade partner, the US, which has slapped a 50% tariff, mainly due to its purchases of Russian crude, which continues.

There has been some reduction in these purchases because the US has sanctioned Russian oil refineries.

But from today's press conference, it's clear that Mr. Putin wants that fuel supply to continue to India, and that will be a contentious issue.
And Davina, from Mr.

Modi's perspective, what does he stand to gain and lose from this? And I'm also focusing on that relationship with the US too. For Mr.
Modi, it's a balancing act.

On one hand, the Russia relationship is a long-standing one. India calls Russia its old ally from the Soviet era.

It continues to make those defence purchases of fighter jets, defense systems for own security, and the energy purchases that we have talked about. On the other hand, India's ties with the U.S.

have never been stronger, especially on technology and defense cooperation. It's looking to ink a bilateral trade deal and force Washington to walk back on those steep tariffs.

So it's going to be trying to do that diplomatic tightrope when it comes to resetting trade ties with the US while maintaining the old alliance with Russia.

Our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, looks at the broader image this projects. projects.
Red carpets, horses, there was a cavalcade, the multi-gun salute in this palatial surroundings.

Judging by the reaction from the Russian media, that went down very well in Moscow.

And Vladimir Putin will have loved that because, again, this plays into him portraying himself as a big player on the international stage.

You know, if you go back four years, back to the tsunami of international sanctions imposed by Western countries on Russia after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

And the message back then was

Russia has to be isolated. Vladimir Putin must be turned into a pariah.

The images that we saw in Delhi, the Russians will have loved that because, again, that portrays the Kremlin leader as right there center stage in global politics. Steve Rosenberg.

Next, the German parliament has voted to introduce voluntary military service aimed at boosting national defenses after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the idea has divided young people.

In schools across Germany today, students have been on strike in protest against conscription.

Our correspondent Bethany Bell was at a school strike in Berlin when the news of the bill passing was announced. I asked her how the measure would work.

Chancellor Mertz of Germany has said that he wants to create Europe's biggest conventional army.

This, of course, because of perceived threats from Russia and also pressure from the United States, President Donald Trump on NATO countries, including Germany, to increase their defence spending.

And in future, this law, all 18-year-olds will receive a questionnaire that will gauge their interest and willingness to engage in military service.

And then as of 2027, 18-year-olds men will have to take a test, a medical test, to see about their suitability as well.

And in this way, the Army is hoping to boost its numbers of people because at the moment they say they don't have enough soldiers.

And Bethany, why are students protesting if the military service is voluntary?

What people here are telling us, they see this as a slippery slope.

One 18-year-old told me that today it's voluntary, but this law also foresees the possibility of making it compulsory if not enough people volunteer for the army or if the security situation gets worse here in Germany there will be the possibility with the agreement of parliament to make military service compulsory and another young man told me that he didn't think war was the answer he said we shouldn't be trying to make war it's about peace the world should be moving away from armed struggle not towards it.

Bethany Bauer reporting from Berlin. Scientists carrying out the largest study so far of the impact of deep sea mining have found that it causes significant damage to animal life on the ocean floor.

Mining for the minerals isn't currently permitted until more is known about the effect of extracting them.

Professor Adrian Glover, a scientist at the Natural History Museum and the senior author on the report, described the area of the Pacific Ocean that was featured in the study.

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and Mexico is a vast region of the sea floor with depths 4,000 to 5,000 meters deep.

It's cold, completely dark, but it's covered with a layer of these potato-sized mineral accretions, rich in the cobalt and nickel and other potential minerals of interest.

But it's also a reservoir of biodiversity. It's dominated by little animals such as worms, clams, crustaceans.

It's a muddy environment, but on top of that mud is a layer of these potato-sized nodules. Professor Glover described the research and what they discovered.

There was a mining company, the Metals Company, in October, November 2022. They did a pretty large-scale test of effectively, what's a giant vacuum cleaner, if you like.

It drives up and down the seabed, hoovering up these little mineral nodules and we were able to go in not only measure the biodiversity before that but also after that and that's where we were able to take samples so you know scientists deal in numbers essentially we found you know that 37% decrease in in the abundance and a 30% roughly decrease in biodiversity our science correspondent Georgina Renard told us more deep sea mining is extremely controversial because actually at the heart of it is a really difficult problem.

The reason mining companies are so interested in the deep ocean is because of those critical minerals in those potato size modules that the professor just described there.

And where this latest research happened in the Clarion Clipperton zone, it's estimated to hold around 21 billion tons of nickel, cobalt and copper nodules.

So these are the minerals used in renewable energy technology that of course we need to tackle climate change if the world is to move away from relying on fossil fuels.

They're used in solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles And there are some predictions that demand could double by 2040.

At the moment, you can mine for those minerals on land, but as demand rises, there are concerns we need to look elsewhere, like the deep ocean.

But some scientists and environmental groups are worried that that could cause untold damage. Yeah, just what is the exact impact of mining for them?

So, that question is why there's still a moratorium, a ban on mining in international waters. The latest team of scientists went on four expeditions.

They looked at animal life in that mud, little creatures like worms, sea spiders that live in the tracks of the mining vehicles. This was just a test mining.

And one of the scientists explained it to me as the machine removes the top layer of sediment, which is where the animals live. So if you remove the sediment, you remove the animals.

And they found that the number of animals was reduced by 37%

in the tracks of the machine, either killed or some may have managed to move away. And the number of species was reduced by 32%.
So it's quite a significant impact.

But I should say they did find that animals living near the mining, but not in its path, weren't really affected. And in the course of the research, they found more than 4,000 animals in total.

Around 90% were new discoveries, which they say shows the incredible biodiversity in the deep ocean, but also how much we don't know about it.

And the research was actually commissioned by a mining company called the Metals Company. They want to know about the environmental impact.

And in response to this paper, they told the BBC that they were encouraged that it was actually only the track, the animals in the tracks, that were affected, rather than all the animals in the vicinity in what's called a sediment plume.

So the findings show a significant impact, but in some ways not as big as some had worried. But I think this debate will definitely rage on as we find out more.
Georgino Renard reporting.

Still to come on this podcast. It's set to be the biggest Football World Cup ever next year, but there are concerns that President Trump's immigration policy could deter some fans.

We have seen the deployment of the military, the militarization of law enforcement in major cities that will actually be hosting the World Cup. These are things that are happening in our country while

we're supposed to welcome millions of people to the World Cup.

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The cost of living is dominating the agenda for finance ministers across the globe.

But in France, the instability that set in after President Macron's inconclusive election of last year is once again taking its toll, with next year's budget now hopelessly bogged down in the divided parliament.

With economic reforms cancelled and national debt soaring, never in the Fifth Republic, says our correspondent Hugh Schofield, has the political future of the country looked so uncertain.

Power having leeched away from President Macron in that disastrous election of his 18 months ago, it's now here in the Assembly Nationale, the parliament, that politics in France is being played out.

Basically, MPs, parliamentarians have discovered that they now have the power to set the rules, to make the laws, to pass the budget, to govern the country, in effect.

The trouble is, they're making a total hash of it.

The pinnacle of the absurd came with a vote on the budget for next year, rather an important vote, you might think, in which not just the opposition benches, but the government benches too voted against.

Yes, every single MP, including the Macronites, voting against their own budget. Well, actually, there was one vote for Arold Ewart, an independent and incidentally very anglophile MP.

It seemed to me totally paradoxical for a parliament to vote unanimously against its own budget, its own text. It's unheard of.

There is no precedent, no example in human history of such a disaster, and I cannot understand myself how we arrived at such a result.

Essentially, what's happening is that the beleaguered Prime Minister Sébastien Lecorniu has made a deal with the socialists.

They've then inserted amendments into the budget, like the suspension of Macron's famous pension reform, which the centre and right then find that they can't stomach.

Another item on the left's wish list is a wealth tax. I'm Geber Zachman.
I'm an economist and I'm the director. The tax the left would like is named after this man, the Zuckmann tax.

Very popular in the country, it would impose a minimum of 2% on people with wealth of more than 100 million Euros.

To stop the very rich simply moving abroad, France would continue to claim tax on them extraterritorially, a bit like the way the United States taxes its citizens wherever they live in the world.

The underlying problems are the same everywhere. And this is the solution.

This is a very simple idea. This is just saying if you have an enormous amount of wealth, and we can debate whether it's 100 million, 1 billion, but if you're super rich,

you have to pay a minimum. The reason all this matters is that the state of French public finances is even worse than the UK's.
Both countries are exactly in a bad situation.

But there is a difference. We are protected by the Euro and you are not protected by the Euro.
And it changed everything. Alain Manck has advised French presidents since François Mitterrand.

He says being in the Euro has been a mixed blessing because the shield it provides has exempted France from making the necessary economic reforms.

And what he fears now is the arrival of the populists, the hard right, Marine Le Pen, not so much for the economic damage they'll cause, the markets won't let them, but the other stuff.

Economically speaking, they are stupid.

But the market at one moment will oblige them to take decisions.

But I think that when they are with their back against the wall and when they are obliged to take very difficult economic measures, they will take their revenge internally and they will attack the pillars of the rule of law.

And the people who would suffer in that would be who?

All of us.

Political analyst Alain Manck ending that report from Hugh Schofield.

The social media network X has been fined 120 million euros or 140 million dollars for breaking EU laws.

The European Commission says the blue ticks and ad policies used by the site, which is owned by Elon Musk, weren't compliant. Here's our technology editor, Zoe Kleinman.

There are three main reasons why the European Commission has found after a two-year investigation that Elon Musk's social network X is not compliant with EU law.

It said the blue ticks that the network uses are deceptive because they used to be a sign that an account holder had been verified by the platform itself.

And now they're a sign that someone has subscribed. But what the EC says is that anybody could subscribe and then potentially be a scammer or be impersonating someone else.

And so they're not a reliable mark of authenticity anymore. It also said that the advertising policies weren't transparent enough.
There were blurred lines between content.

content and adverts and it wasn't always clear how the adverts were being targeted and finally it said X had not been sharing data with researchers, which is another component of the EU law.

We have not yet had a comment from X itself to them. It's not an awful lot of money and it could have been a lot worse actually.
The fine can be up to 6% of annual turnover.

The European Commission says it hasn't gone for that. It's gone for a modest fine that it feels is proportionate.

What X has to do now is to start showing that it is prepared to comply with the law and if it doesn't it might face further fines down the line.

FIFA introducing dynamic pricing. Run and Evain is from Football Supporters Europe.

This is going to be the most expensive World Cup ever, to the point that currently a lot of fans in Europe are considering whether they can afford to travel to the US.

This was always going to be an expensive World Cup because of the distance

because of the cost of life in the US. But the one cost that FIFA had control over, which is the ticket prices, have completely spiraled into

unprecedented price. We're talking now about

at least $4,500

for anyone that would like to follow their team from the first game of the competition towards the final.

There are also concerns that President Trump's immigration policy could deter some fans. Jamil Dakwa is the director of American Civil Liberties Union.

We have seen the deployment of the military, the militarization of law enforcement in major cities that will actually be hosting the World Cup. These are things that are happening in our country while

we're supposed to welcome millions of people to the work.

And the expected recipient, no other than the US President Donald Trump himself, who will be among the attendees.

He's forged a close bond with FIFA's president Gianni Infantino.

But amid an intensifying immigration crackdown and a threat to strip some Democrat-run cities of host status over security issues, there's concern.

Despite further fears over the cost of tickets facing fans, organisers insist this will be a welcoming event that boosts the U.S. economy and grows the game.

And after today's milestone, the countdown really will have begun.

Dan Rowan reporting. This will be the last year of Christmas Christmas cards in Denmark, as the country's post office has, after 400 years, decided to give up delivering letters.

It's a decision that reflects the modern shift to digital messaging and sends a chilling message to other national post services.

Magnus Ristofta is the director of Enigma, the post and telecommunications museum in Copenhagen. He first shared a brief history of the Danish post office with the BBC's Johnny Diamond.

It's more than 400 years old. It was actually 1624 the Danish king Christian IV established the first postal service

in the Nordic region, actually. And that time it was a matter of power and controlling lines of communication and so on.

So it was like a huge thing and it was extremely popular from the start, actually.

But now you have seen a collapse in the number of letters being sent and received. Yeah, that's true.

Not more than like 25, 26 years ago, we had like 1.4 billion letters were sent in Denmark at that time. Now it's more, the number is closer to 100 million letters.
So it has decreased so fast.

And presumably, instead of sending letters, people are tapping away on their phones, on their laptops, on their computers. I mean, you have a very advanced digital infrastructure in Denmark.

Denmark is one of the most digitalized countries in the world and much of our communication with the public authorities, the banks and the businesses takes place exclusively through the digital mail and digital channels.

Denmark is a coastal nation, isn't it? It's got an enormous coast and many, many islands. There must be some extraordinary sort of efforts to get letters to the most far-flung places in Denmark.

You're totally right.

It's it's it's something that we are not quite sure yet how we are going to handle and and and I think that in a in a year or two, I think that a lot of people will probably know exactly what this meant.

And right now, we don't actually know. So I think a lot of us are quite curious about how it's going to develop in the next year or two, because I can't see how we can obtain the possibility

for people living very far away

from big cities to actually receive a letter, even though it's sent by

pass. Have you got a last letter in mind? The last letter you might send?

I do actually. For me, it's actually quite important to send Christmas and New Year's letters this year, even more important than

it was before, because I know when I send these letters, it will be the last time we can actually receive them at our home,

as we were used to for more than 400 years. So it's quite interesting to write these letters.
And I think I will actually take some pictures of these these letters as well because it's quite historic.

Let's see how it will work out in the next couple of years and hopefully we will find a way to still send these letters in a different way. Magnus Rostoft speaking to the BBC's Johnny Diamond.

And that's all from us for now on this episode, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.

If you want to comment on this particular podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

and you can also find us on x at bbc world service and you can use the hashtag global newspod. This edition was mixed by Louis Griffin and the producers were Charles Sanctuary and Isabella Jewell.

The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Anchor Desai. Until next time, goodbye.

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