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Hollywood Is Woven Into New York’s Economic Fabric Supporting Jobs & Billions In Economic Output
By David Carlucci
Over the past several months, Hollywood has been consumed by one of the most complicated corporate bidding wars in recent memory, and New York had a lot riding on the outcome. The fight for Warner Bros. Discovery, the media giant behind HBO, CNN, and Warner Bros. film studios, ended with Netflix walking away and Paramount Skydance stepping in. For New York’s workers, our creative economy, and our communities, that is very good news.
Why New York Has Skin in the Game
New York is not a passive bystander in Hollywood stories. The film and television industry supports roughly 185,000 jobs in New York City alone, generating $18.1 billion in wages and more than $81 billion in total economic output. Across the state, the entertainment ecosystem extends well beyond production sets. It encompasses post-production facilities, advertising agencies, legal and accounting firms, and the more than 300 movie theaters that serve our communities from Massapequa to Massena. New York accounts for roughly 6 to 7 percent of all movie screens in the United States. This industry is woven into our economic fabric in ways that make any major disruption to it a New York issue, not just a Hollywood one.
How We Got Here
In December 2025, Netflix announced an $82.7 billion agreement to acquire a significant portion of Warner Bros. Discovery, including its film studio, HBO, and streaming assets. Almost immediately, Paramount Skydance launched a competing bid, ultimately raising its offer multiple times before Warner’s board declared Paramount’s revised $110.9 billion all-cash proposal the stronger deal. Netflix declined to match the price and stepped aside. The two studios announced a definitive merger agreement in late February.
Why the Netflix Deal Would Have Been Bad for New York
The Netflix-Warner combination attracted bipartisan concern in Congress and formal antitrust scrutiny from the Department of Justice for good reason. The core worry was straightforward: merging the world’s dominant subscription streaming platform with one of Hollywood’s most prolific studios and the HBO library would have concentrated enormous power in a single company with every incentive to pull content off movie screens and onto a paywall.
For New York, the threat was concrete. With theaters already fighting to recover from the pandemic, the prospect of Netflix absorbing Warner’s substantial film output and routing it directly to its streaming platform, bypassing theaters entirely, would have been devastating. New York City alone has roughly 75 theaters, and statewide there are more than 300. Those theaters mean jobs: projectionists, managers, concession workers, and the entire surrounding ecosystem of restaurants and retail that depend on foot traffic. Beyond the box office, a Netflix-Warner monopoly would have raised concerns about streaming prices, content diversity, and what happens to the thousands of writers, directors, and production professionals whose work flows through the Warner pipeline.
As FCC Chair Brendan Carr noted, Netflix would have faced “a very difficult path” getting the deal through regulators, which is a sign that federal officials recognized the same risks New York’s policymakers saw.
The Better Path Forward
The Paramount-Warner combination is a fundamentally different kind of deal. Unlike a streamer acquiring a studio, this is a merger of two entities with a shared business model, both deeply invested in theatrical distribution, cable, and the traditional content ecosystem that has long sustained New York’s industry. Paramount has pledged to release at least 30 films annually in theaters, a commitment that bodes well for the more than 300 movie houses across our state.
New York has always been a leader in the entertainment industry. The outcome of this bidding war, with Netflix stepping aside and a more compatible partner stepping in, is a positive development for that ongoing legacy. Our elected officials should remain engaged as the deal moves through regulatory review, ensuring that whatever comes next keeps New York’s workers and communities at the center of the conversation.
David Carlucci consults organizations on navigating government and securing funding. He served for ten years in the New York Senate.
