Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos arrives in Brussels on Tuesday with a clear message for EU regulators ahead of a looming review of Europe’s streaming rules: Don’t overcomplicate them. In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, Sarandos said Netflix can live with regulation — but warned the EU not to fracture the single market with a patchwork of national mandates as officials prepare to reopen the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. “It doesn’t make it a very healthy business environment if you don’t know if the rules are going to change midway through production,” Sarandos said. He also warned regulators are underestimating YouTube as a direct competitor for TV viewing, too often treating it like a social media platform with “a bunch of cat videos” than a massive streaming rival. Sarandos’ effort to win over European regulators comes soon after the collapse of Netflix’s bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery — but Sarandos maintained that the political dynamics around the deal only “complicated the narrative, not the actual outcomes.” He added that there was no political interference in the deal, and he shrugged off President Donald Trump’s demand to remove Susan Rice, a former national security adviser under President Barack Obama, from the Netflix board. “It was a social media post,” Sarandos said. “It was not ideal, but he does a lot of things on social media.” This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What’s bringing you back to Brussels now? Well, we have ongoing meetings with regulators around Europe all the time. We have so much business in Europe, obviously, and so this has been on the books for quite a while. Can you give me a little bit of a sense of who you’re meeting with, and what is the focus? I think one of the things to keep in mind is that we’ve become such an important part, I’d think, of the European audiovisual economy. We’ve spent, in the last decade, over $13 billion in creating content in Europe. It makes us one of the leading producers and exporters of European storytelling. First of all, we’ve got a lot of skin in the game in Europe, obviously. We work with over 600 independent European producers. We created about 100,000 cast and crew jobs in Europe from our productions. So we talk to folks who are interested in all the elements of that — how to keep it, how to maintain it, how to grow it and how to protect it. In terms of regulation in the EU, Netflix is governed by a directive here. The commission is looking to reopen that this year. There seems to be a sense here from regulators that the current rules don’t create a level playing field between the broadcasters, the video on demand, the video sharing, and so they may look to put more requirements on that. How steeped in the details are you there? And how would Netflix react to more rules put on Netflix at this moment? Well, first and foremost, we comply with all the rules that apply to us in terms of how we’re regulated today. We have seen by operating around the world that those countries where they lean more into incentives than the strict regulatory scheme, that the incentives pay off. We’ve got multibillion dollar investments in Spain and the UK, where they have really leaned into attracting production through incentives versus regulatory mandates, so we find that that’s a much more productive environment to work in. But the core for me is that obviously they’re going to evolve the regulatory models, but as long as they remain simple, predictable, consistent — the single market, the benefit of the single-market is this — as long as these rules remain simple, predictable and consistent, it’s a good operating model. I think the more that it gets broken up by individual countries and individual mandates, you lose all the benefits of the single market. There’s a lot of talk in Brussels right now about simplification, getting rid of a lot of red tape. Do you think the rules that you’re governed by would benefit from a similar kind of effort to simplify, of pulling back on a lot of these patchwork of rules, even at the EU? Look, I think it doesn’t make it a very healthy business environment if you don’t know if the rules are going to change midway through production, so for me, having some stability is really important, and I understand that we’re in a dynamic market and a dynamic business, and they should reflect the current operating models that we’re in too. We want to work closely with the regulators to make sure that what they’re doing and what we’re doing kind of reflect each other, which is trying to protect the healthy work environment for folks in Europe. When you meet with regulators here, is there a message you’re going to be delivering to them or what do you want them to walk away with in terms of the bottom line for you in terms of your business at this moment in the EU? I think some things are well understood and other things I think are less so. I think our commitment to European production is unique in the world. Both in our original production but also in our investment in second right’s windows that we pre-invest in films that compel production. Tens of millions of dollars’ worth of film production is compelled by our licensing agreements as well beyond our original production. And the fact that we work with local European producers on these projects — I think there’s a misconception that we don’t. And the larger one is the economic impact that that brings to Europe and to the world with our original program strategy that supports so many, not just the productions themselves but even tourism in European countries. Think about President [Emmanuel] Macron pointing out that 38 percent of people who went to France last year cited “Emily in Paris” as one of the top reasons they went. We’ve seen that in other countries. We saw it in Madrid with the “Casa de Papel.” And so it’s one of those things where it really raises all boats across the economies of these countries. Regulators often focus on the competition between streaming services, but as you know very well, younger audiences are spending more time on platforms like YouTube. Do you think policymakers are underestimating that shift? Would you like to see that taken into account more in the regulatory landscape? One of the things that we saw in recent months with the Warner Brothers transaction is a real deep misunderstanding about what YouTube is and isn’t. YouTube is a straightforward direct competitor for television, either a local broadcaster or a streamer like Netflix. The connected television market is a zero-sum screen. So whichever one you choose, that’s what you’re watching tonight. And you monetize through subscription or advertising or both, but at the end of the day, it’s that choosing to engage in how you give them and how, and how that programming is monetized is a very competitive landscape and it includes YouTube. I think what happens is people think of YouTube as a bunch of cat videos and maybe some way to, to promote your stuff by putting it on there for free. But it turns out it is a zero-sum game. You’re going to be choosing at the expense of an RTL or Netflix. I think in this case it’s one of these things where recognizing and understanding that YouTube is in the same exact game that we are. Do you feel like you’re on different planes though, in the eyes of regulators at this moment? I don’t think that they see them as a direct competitor in that way. I think they think of that as an extension of social media. And the truth is when we talk about them as a competitor, we’re only talking about them on the screen. I’m not talking about their mobile usage or any of that. You know, about 55 percent of all YouTube engagement now is on the television through their app. So to me, that’s the thing to keep an eye on. As you get into this, it’s a pretty straightforward, competitive model and we think probably should have a level playing field relative to everybody else. Who do you view as Netflix’s main competitors today? Look, our competitive space is really the television screen. When people pick up the remote and pick what to watch, everyone is in that mix. We identified YouTube — this isn’t new for us — we identified YouTube as a competitor in the space 10 years ago, even before they moved to the television. And I think, for the most part, TikTok forced their hand to move to the television because they were kind of getting chased off the phone more or less by TikTok. I think that’s the other one that regulators should pay a lot of attention to is what’s happening with the rise of TikTok engagement as well. It’s not directly competitive for us, but it is for attention and time and to your point, maybe the next generation’s consumer behavior. Last question on regulation: With the EU looking at the rules again, there’s a tendency always to look to tinker more and more and do more. Is there a point at what regulation starts affecting your willingness to invest in European production? Well, like I said, those core principles of predictability and simplicity have really got to come into play, because I think what happens is, just like any business, you have to be able to plan. So, if you make a production under one set of regs and release it under another, it’s not a very stable business environment. The topic that dominated a lot of your attention in recent months was obviously the merger talks with Warner Brothers Discovery. I know you’ve said it didn’t work for financial reasons. I want to ask you a little bit about the political dynamics. How much did the political environment, including the Susan Rice incident, how much did that complicate the calculus in your mind? I think it complicated the narrative, not the actual outcomes. I think for us it was always a business transaction, was always a well-regulated process in the U.S. The Department of Justice was handling it, everything was moving through. We were very confident we did not have a regulatory issue. Why would that be? It’s because it was very much a vertical transaction. I can’t name a transaction that was similar to this that has ever been blocked in history. We did not have duplicated assets. We did have a market concentration issue in the marketplace that we operate in. And I think that’s the feedback I was getting back from the DOJ and from regulators in general, which was, they understood that, but I do think that Paramount did a very nice job of creating a very loud narrative of a regulatory challenge that didn’t exist. But looking back to those early days of the merger discussions, did you have an appreciation for what might follow in terms of that complicated narrative? Yeah. Look, I think it opens up the door to have a lot of conversations that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, but that’s okay. A lot great things came out of it, the process itself. I would say in total, we had a price for where we thought this was good for our business. We made our best and final offer back in December and it was our best and final offer. So that’s all. But what came out a bit that’s positive is, we’ve had really healthy conversations with folks who we hardly ever talked to, theater operators, as a good example. I had a great meeting in February with the International Union of Cinemas, and the heads from all the different countries about what challenges they have, how we could be more helpful, or how they could be helpful to us too. I think we’ll come out of this with a much more creative relationship with exhibitions around the world. And by way of example, doing things that we haven’t done before. I don’t recommend testifying before the Senate again, but it was an interesting experience for sure. Probably a good learning experience. Hopefully not in the future for anything that you don’t want to be there for, but yes. Yeah, exactly. We’ve always said from the beginning, the Warner transaction was a nice-to-have at the right price, not a must-have-at-any-price. The business is healthy, growing organically. We’re growing on the path that we laid out several years ago and we didn’t really need this to grow the business. These assets are out there through our growth period and they’re going to be out there and for our next cycle growth as well and we’ve got to compete with that just like we knew we had to at the beginning. This was I think something that would fortify and maybe accelerate some of our existing models, but it doesn’t change our outcome. Are there regrets or things you might have wished you’d done differently? I mean honestly we took a very disciplined approach. I think we intentionally did not get distracted by the narrative noise, because we knew, we recognized what it was right away, which is just narrative noise. This deal was very good for the industry. Very good for both companies, Warner Brothers and Netflix. Our intent was obviously to keep those businesses operating largely as they are now. All the synergies that we had in the deal were mostly technologies and managerial, so we would have kept a big growth engine going in Hollywood and around the world. The alternative, which we’ve always said, is a lot of cutting. I think regulators in Europe and regulators in the U.S. should keep an eye on horizontal mergers. They should keep a close eye on [leveraged buyouts]. They typically are not good for the economy anywhere they happen. What were you preparing for in terms of the EU regulatory scrutiny with Warner Brothers? What was your read on how that might have looked? I think we’re a known entity in Europe. Keep in mind, like in Q4 of last year, we reported $3.5 billion or $3.8 billion in European revenues. So 18 percent year-on-year growth. The EU is now our largest territory. We’re a known entity there. The reason we didn’t take out press releases, we had meetings in Europe as we know everybody. We talked to the regulators, both at the EU and at the country level. And I do think that in many of the countries that we operate in, we’re a net contributor to the local economy, which I think is really important. We’ve got 12 offices across Europe with 2,500 people. So we’re members of the local ecosystem, we’re not outsiders. With President Trump, he demanded that Netflix remove Susan Rice from the board or pay the consequences. Did that cross a line for you in terms of political interference? It was a social media post, and we didn’t, no, it did not. It was not ideal, but he does a lot of things on social media. So you didn’t interpret it as anything bigger than that. I mean, he does that one day, he could obviously weigh in on content the next day. How does somebody like you manage situations like that? I think it’s really important to be able to separate noise from signal, and I think a lot of what happens in a world where we have a lot of noise. There was so much attention to you going to the White House that day. And we didn’t learn until several days later that you didn’t actually have the meetings that were predicted. Before you arrived in Washington that day, had you already made the decision not to proceed? Not before arriving in Washington, but we knew the framework for if this, then that. So, yeah, I would say that it was interesting, but again, we don’t make a big parade about our meetings with government and with the regulators. I had a meeting on the books with the DOJ scheduled several weeks before, meeting with Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, scheduled several months before, unrelated to the Warner Brothers deal. And that was just the calendar that lined up that way. We didn’t know when Warner Brothers would make the statement about the deal. It’s all very dramatic, like it belongs on Netflix as a movie. There was paparazzi outside of the White House waiting for me when I came out. I’ve never experienced that before. Yeah, it’s a remarkable story. I would tell you, and I’m being honest with you, there was no political interference in this deal. The president is interested in entertainment and interested in deals, so he was curious about the mechanics of things and how things were going to go or whatever, but he made it very clear that this was under the DOJ. So it’s just like we all spun it up from the media? How do you explain it all? First of all, Netflix is clickbait. So people write about Netflix and it gets read. And that’s a pretty juicy story. And [Trump] said, and by the way, like I said, he makes statements sometimes that lead to the beliefs of things that do and sometimes that don’t materialize at all. But I found my conversations with him were 100 percent about the industry, protecting the industry. And I think it’s very healthy that the president of the United States speaks to business leaders about industries that are important to the economy. To what degree did the narrative or the fact that David Ellison had a relationship or seemed to have a relationship with people in Washington who were in power, that that might have swayed or changed the dynamic at the end with where Warner Brothers went though? I can’t speak to what their thinking is on it. I feel like for me, it’s very important to know the folks in charge, but I wouldn’t count on it if you’re doing something that is not in the best interest of the country or the economy. You talked with Trump in the past about entertainment jobs. Were there specific policies you’ve advocated to him or anything that he brought up on that point? He has brought up tariffs for the movie and television industry many times. And I’ve hopefully talked to him the way out of them. I just said basically the same thing I said earlier. I think that incentive works much better. We’re seeing it in the U.S. things like the states compete with each other for production incentives and those states with good, healthy incentive programs attract a lot of production, and you’ve seen a lot of them move from California to Georgia to New Jersey, kind of looking for that what’s the best place to operate in, where you could put more on the screen. And I do think that having the incentives versus tariffs is much better. Netflix is now buying Ben Affleck’s AI company. What areas do you see AI having the most potential to change Netflix’s workflow? My focus is that AI should be a creator tool. But with the same way production tools have evolved over time, AI is just a rapid, important evolution of these tools. It is one of those. And the idea that the creators could use it to do things that they could never do before to do it. Potentially, they could do faster and cheaper. But the most impact will be if they can make it better. I don’t think faster and cheaper matters if it’s not better. This is the most competitive time in the history of media. So you’ve gotta be better every time out of the gate. And faster and cheaper consumers are not looking for faster and cheaper, they’re looking for better. I do think that AI, particularly InterPositive, the company we bought from Ben, will help creators make things better. Using their own dailies, using their own production materials to make the film that they’re making better. Still requires writers and actors and lighting techs and all the things that you’d use to make a movie, but be able to make the movie more effective, more efficient. Being able to do pick up shots and things like this that you couldn’t do before. It’s really remarkable. It’s a really remarkable company. As AI improves, do you see the role of human voice actors shrinking at Netflix? What’s interesting about that is if you look at the evolution of tools for dubbing and subtitling, the one for dubbing, we do a lot of A-B tests that people, if you watch something and you don’t like it, you just turn it off. The one thing that we find to be the most important part of dubbing is the performance. So good voice actors really matter. Yeah, it’s a lot cheaper to use AI, but without the performance, which is very human, it actually runs down the quality of the production. Will it evolve over time? Possibly, but it won’t evolve without the cooperation and the training of the actual voice actors themselves too. I think what will happen is you’ll be able to do things like pick up lines that you do months and months after the production. You’ll be able to recreate some of those lines in the film without having to call everybody back and redo everything which will help make a better film. You’re in the sort of early stages of a push into video podcast. What have you learned so far about what works and what doesn’t? It’s really early. The main thing is we’ve got a broad cross-section of podcasts. It’s nowhere near as complete as other podcast outlets yet. But the things that we leaned into are the things that are working. We kind of figured they would. You’ve got true crime, sports, comedy, all those things that we do well in the doc space already. And I really am excited about things where people can develop and deepen the relationship with the show itself or the [intellectual property] itself. Our Bridgerton podcast is really popular, and people really want to go deeper and we want to be able to provide that for them. I think a video podcast is just the evolution of talk shows. We have tried to and failed at many talk shows over the years, and for the most part it’s because the old days of TV, when 40 million people used to tune in to the Tonight Show every night, [are over]. What’s happened now is that it’s much smaller audiences that tune into multiple shows in the form of a podcast every day. And then they come up to be way bigger than the 40 million that Johnny Carson used to get. They’re all individual, and it’s a deeper relationship than it is a broad one. So instead of trying to make one show for the world, you might have to make hundreds or thousands of shows for the whole world.

The European Parliament on Wednesday called for a Europe-wide minimum threshold of 16 for minors to access social media without their parents’ consent. Parliament members also want the EU to hold tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk personally liable should their platforms consistently violate the EU’s provisions on protecting minors online — a suggested provision that was added by Hungarian social-democrat member Dóra Dávid, who previously worked for Meta. The call for tougher rules on social media comes as several EU countries prepare more restrictions on social media for kids, following concerns about the effects on mental health and development of platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and others. Australia is in the process of implementing an age limit of 16 for users of social media accounts. The European Parliament backed an age limit in its report on how to better protect minors online, with 483 members voting in favor, 92 against and 86 abstaining. The report called on the European Commission to ensure that laws and measures on age checks are consistent across the bloc. Several countries are rushing to develop their own national checks. The bulk of the votes against and abstentions came from political groups on the right, who have argued that the report goes too far into EU countries’ competencies. The report was led by Danish social-democrat Christel Schaldemose, who also led Parliament’s work on the Digital Services Act, the EU’s content moderation regulation. The report could influence upcoming negotiations on EU law. The Commission is set to propose two legislative acts that will include heavy chunks on minor protections next year: the review of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive and a new Digital Fairness Act.

BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen is so set on getting her grandkids off social media she forgot to do her homework. The European Commission chief made waves in recent weeks when she came out in favor of a European Union minimum age for using social media — twice. Citing strong pressure from EU capitals for a “digital majority” age, von der Leyen said at an event in New York that “as a mother of seven children, and grandmother of five, I share their view.” “We all agree that young people should reach a certain age before they smoke, drink or access adult content. The same can be said for social media,” she said. But von der Leyen has so far overlooked a simple fact: It’s up to national governments, not the EU, to set age restrictions for alcohol and tobacco. The Commission can coordinate rules about health but cannot harmonize them, according to the legal treaties of the bloc. “There is a significant question of whether [banning social media] is even something that the European Union has the power to do,” said Peter Craddock, partner at Keller & Heckman law firm in Brussels. Craddock currently offers legal services to social media companies. Von der Leyen said in her annual State of the Union speech that she will task a panel of experts to study whether to implement a social media ban and how to do it.   There’s a lot to figure out, such as how much “autonomy” to give EU countries and whether they should be allowed to set their own age, whether “it’s a full ban or a partial ban for certain functionalities or certain types of interactions,” Craddock said. Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier in June said that an EU-wide ban “is not what the European Commission is doing. It’s not where we are heading to. Why? Because this is the prerogative of our member states.” For many, that hasn’t changed. “Currently, we don’t see any legal basis for a harmonized social media ban for children at EU level,” said Fabiola Bas Palomares, lead policy and advocacy officer at Eurochild, a children’s rights group. MANY LAWS, NO SOLUTIONS The EU’s flagship privacy regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), was one legal route the Commission previously suggested as a possible avenue. The GDPR sets the age of 13 as the lowest possible age when minors can consent to their personal data being processed — something that happens on all social media platforms. But the law allows for different countries to raise the bar. But experts have pointed out this doesn’t really work as an instrument to impose a digital majority age.   The GDPR sets the age of 13 as the lowest possible age when minors can consent to their personal data being processed — something that happens on all social media platforms. | Nicolas Guyonnet/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images Craddock pointed out that a country can end up in a situation where laws on processing personal data are “less permissive” than access to social media, or vice versa. “Then you have to be able to justify that,” he said. The GDPR still shows that EU legislators “were able to at least have a range” of ages for restrictions, said Urs Buscke, senior legal policy officer at umbrella consumer organization BEUC. She said this is where things could go for social media restrictions too. Another legal avenue is a revision of the EU’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive, a law that applies to video-sharing platforms — which effectively covers most social media. The law will be reviewed next year and stronger protections for minors are on the table.  But, in EU speak, that law is a directive and not a regulation, meaning countries have a lot of leeway in how to apply it. It is also focused on keeping kids away from adult content, not off social media altogether, said Bas Palomares. There are guidelines under the Digital Services Act, but those guidelines are non-binding and help platforms comply with the EU’s landmark online safety law. Released this summer, the latest version still leaves age restrictions up to EU countries. The guidelines are reviewed annually, so the Commission could look to tighten the screws on platforms next year. But Regnier stressed last week that the Digital Services Act “is not the legal basis that will allow us to set the minimum age” for social media. There’s also the Digital Fairness Act, an upcoming revamp of consumer law, which will include provisions on protecting vulnerable consumers, including minors. Buscke, who specializes in consumer law, said this is unlikely to include a social media ban. Craddock said it’s too late to tack a social media ban onto that revamp as consultations are already ongoing and such a measure would require large-scale studies. CAN THEY, SHOULD THEY? Warnings about the health dangers of kids’ addictions to social media have piled up — from the EU’s top leadership and governments all the way to health authorities and tech regulators. But despite the momentum, some experts doubt an outright ban is the right way to go. Bas Palomares said a ban is incongruous with children’s rights to “protection, information, education, freedom of expression, play” which are “substantially enabled” by social media. “A social media ban would mean a disproportionate restriction of children’s rights and perhaps push them toward situations of greater risk and lower supervision,” she said. “Before resorting to arbitrary age restrictions, the EU should focus on leveraging and complementing the tools we already have.”

Swedish music streaming company Spotify announced that its longtime Chief Executive Officer Daniel Ek will step down at the end of this year. Ek will take on the role of executive chairman from January onward. The company’s current two co-presidents, Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström, will take the helm as co-CEOs of one of Europe’s strongest technology brands. Ek co-founded Spotify and grew the company into a cultural behemoth with more than 696 million users and 276 million subscribers worldwide. As one of Europe’s most highly valued tech companies, Spotify has also turned into a politically relevant player at the EU level. It led a charge against Apple by filing a complaint against the U.S. firm’s alleged misuse of its dominant position in distributing music streaming apps through its App Store. This eventually led the Commission to impose a €1.8 billion fine on Apple in 2024. Ek regularly weighed in personally on how Brussels handled antitrust matters.

Ireland’s media regulator is turning up the heat on Elon Musk’s social media site X for not properly checking the age of users who can access porn. The country’s new Online Safety Code includes provisions on age assurance to keep minors away from harmful content, including pornographic and violent content. The code applies to video-sharing platforms X, Facebook and TikTok. These age-check provisions came into effect on July 21. “Based on an initial review of the X platform, we cannot see evidence of measures taken to comply with this age assurance requirement,” a spokesperson for Ireland’s media regulator Coimisiún na Meán told POLITICO in a statement. The regulator has “further concerns” of non-compliance, “including but not limited to” the “availability of parental controls.” The regulator asked X to provide information by July 25 and “will take further action where there is evidence of non-compliance with the Code,” the spokesperson said. The Coimisiún na Meán in June put pressure on X to comply with the code, sending the platform a statutory information request to describe its compliance measures. X has a deadline to respond by Aug. 8, which was extended from July 22. The platform risks being charged with a crime and fined up to €500,000 should it fail to respond by the deadline. Musk’s platform is also challenging the code before Ireland’s High Court, including certain provisions contained within it and its application to X. A decision on that challenge is expected on Friday, July 25. Ireland’s new media law is a national implementation of the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). Companies with their EU headquarters in Ireland have to follow Irish rules. X did not reply to a request for comment in time for publication. An X spokesperson said earlier that the company is “fully committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations,” including Ireland’s code, and is “prioritizing its implementation.” The French government is considering classifying X, Bluesky and Reddit as porn platforms, which would mean they have to follow stricter age verification requirements.