This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on December 5th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

Hollywood shakes as Netflix buys HBO for 83 billion dollars. The deal will redraw the entire streaming market — and more big deals are now on the way. A hidden factor decided the final battle.

“Our goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.”

The year is 2013 and the company that made its name by posting DVD discs in red envelopes has begun a major transformation. In an interview with GQ, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos explains the company’s ambition. They are just about to launch the series “House of Cards,” and a golden age of high-quality television begins.

The goal sounds extremely ambitious at that moment. Surely Netflix cannot become like the legendary HBO?

The answer now — twelve years later — is more dramatic than a mere resemblance. Netflix is buying HBO in a gigantic media deal that values the company at 83 billion dollars, around 781 billion kronor including debt. The deal will completely redraw the streaming map ahead of 2026.

It has not been easy to keep up with all the structural changes that have happened in the American media world in recent years. But anyone who has subscribed to HBO may have had a taste of the chaos.

The app HBO Go existed alongside HBO Now. Then both became HBO Max. Then the company decided that the HBO brand was putting off some customers, and renamed the product to simply Max instead. Before most recently reverting to HBO Max again. And now they become Netflix in the end.

The name changes are indicative of a media world that has been both unclear and unfocused. The balance between the old, very profitable cable TV business and streaming led to a wavering strategy. HBO also found itself stuck in a jumble of other TV-related assets through its owners. The parent company is called Warner Bros Discovery and was an attempt to create synergies by growing and getting bigger. The combination of HBO and the Swedish Kanal 5 in the same streaming service was never particularly logical, except for those who only looked at the numbers.

Nor was it a great success. What grew primarily was the debt burden in the company — and that is also the reason for the impending sale.

What Netflix has bought includes HBO’s catalogue of well-known series and films. Titles such as The Sopranos, The Wire, and Sex and the City are examples of award-winning programmes that have seen the light of day through them. The Harry Potter series is also part of the package. This catalogue, together with the studio operations and streaming service, is what will henceforth be part of Netflix’s business instead.

For Warner Bros Discovery, the acquisition means it can substantially reduce its debt burden and then try to find a future for the assets that remain in the company.

The deal had been known about for some time, but it was not clear which of the many interested parties would pull the longest straw. Telecoms giant Comcast — owner of NBC Universal and streaming service Peacock — and the newly formed Paramount Skydance are the two other players that showed the greatest interest.

Skydance, run by tech billionaire Larry Ellison’s son, has close ties to the Trump administration and was assumed by many to have an advantage. Deals of this nature need to be approved by US competition authorities — and there, Ellison’s relationship with Trump could have helped considerably.

To counter this, Netflix needed to offer a so-called “breakup fee” of as much as five billion dollars. This means the fee is paid to HBO’s owners if the deal falls through, even if it is the authorities that throw a spanner in the works. You can see it as a form of insurance for the seller.

The acquisition will redraw the streaming market, which has largely struggled with profitability despite lower ambitions around content and investment in recent years. The conventional analysis is that the market has too many players, creating too much competition and price pressure. Consumers also become disloyal when they switch between many different services to exploit sign-up offers or watch a single series.

The deal creates a powerful consolidation. Netflix — already the largest in the segment — can cement its position and will likely force other acquisitions and alliances to meet it.

Competitors such as Disney and the aforementioned Paramount Skydance and Comcast will already be sketching out alternative deals they can make. Amazon’s Prime Video and Apple TV likewise, even though both have other revenue streams that can pay for their video services for an almost indefinite period.

In Hollywood, the deal represents a minor revolution, even culturally. Netflix — once an upstart whose content mostly consisted of leftovers that the other channels licensed to them — has come to be a new colossus. And they are picking up one of the industry’s finest brands and content catalogues to boot.

The playing field in the TV world is being redrawn, and it is a tech company sitting in the driving seat. Ted Sarandos’s goal from 2013 suddenly feels obvious.

The upstart did not just overtake — now they are taking over.