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AT&T officially divested Crunchyroll, closing the sale of the anime business to Sony’s Funimation group – bringing together two former competitors under the Sony umbrella.
The phone company, in search of every opportunity to repay its debt, sold Crunchyroll for $ 1.175 billion in cash paid at closing by Funimation Global Group, a joint venture between Sony Pictures Entertainment and the Sony Music Entertainment subsidiary ( Japan) Aniplex.
Sony’s goal is to “create a unified anime subscription experience as soon as possible,” said Tony Vinciquerra, chief executive officer of Sony Pictures, announcing the deal’s closing on Monday. “With the addition of Crunchyroll, we have an unprecedented opportunity to serve anime fans like never before and deliver the anime experience on any platform of their choice, from cinema to events, home entertainment, games, streaming, linear TV – everywhere and in every way fans want to experience their anime.
The deal was first announced in December 2020 and was pending regulatory approval. Details on how Sony will combine Crunchyroll and Funimation remain unclear, but for now the two services will remain separate.
Crunchyroll’s streaming service has over 5 million paying subscribers worldwide and 120 million registered users in over 200 countries. Funimation has not disclosed how many subscribers or users it has. The closing of the acquisition of Crunchyroll by Funimation will allow the two services “to expand distribution for their content partners and expand fan-centric offerings to consumers,” AT&T and Sony said in a statement.
Sony Pictures Television bought a controlling stake in Funimation in 2017 for $ 143 million. In 2019, Funimation founder Gen Fukunaga stepped down from day-to-day management. Fukunaga founded Funimation in 1994 after a career in IT and consulting.
“We are very pleased to welcome Crunchyroll to the Sony Group,” said Kenichiro Yoshida, Sony Group President and CEO, in a statement. “Anime is a rapidly growing medium that captivates and arouses emotion among audiences around the world. Aligning Crunchyroll and Funimation will bring us even closer to the creators and fans who are at the heart of the anime community.
Founded in 2006, Crunchyroll became part of WarnerMedia after AT&T bought Chernin Group’s majority stake in Otter in 2018. More generally, AT&T dismantled its previous entertainment strategy: it completed the DirecTV spin-off and of its other pay-TV operations in the United States last week. And it is currently in the process of divesting WarnerMedia to combine it with Discovery, a deal expected to be concluded in mid-2022.
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