WarnerMedia will download the anime-focused Crunchyroll streaming service, and Sony is among interested buyers, according to a source wisely in discussions.
The 14-year service surpassed 3 million subscribers at the end of July, up from 2 million at the end of 2018. That’s about the same number of retail subscribers that WarnerMedia’s 2-month-old HBO Max attracted.
But despite Crunchyroll’s relative good fortune for a niche transmitter, WarnerMedia’s parent company has sought to reduce its debt. As such, the source claims that WarnerMedia’s new director, Jason Kilar, needs to sell all the assets that are not essential to the entertainment company’s business.
WarnerMedia’s online bid was placed on HBO Max, which was introduced last May to offer a wide catalog of network systems and studios. Crunchyroll has a brand tag in the app, where it organizes a variety of anime systems, but has also remained a separate subscription service. In a recent interview with Deadline, EXECUTIVE Director Joanne Waage said “the purpose is to force both” services.
An agreement for Crunchyroll would be uploaded to Sony’s existing Funimation anime business, but the source says Sony’s offering is less than WarnerMedia expected to get for the company. The Information, which first reported on the sale negotiations, said the value requested by WarnerMedia by Crunchyroll was $1.5 billion.
Representatives of Otter Media, the WarnerMedia department that Crunchyroll and Sony declined to comment.
Kilar, who previously ran Hulu and short-lived video business Vessel, is quickly making WarnerMedia his own after joining the company in May. In early June, reports emerged that the company was looking to sell gaming unit Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Then, on Friday, he announced a sweeping reorganization that included the ouster of entertainment executives Bob Greenblatt and Kevin Reilly and created a new Ann Sarnoff-led division that encompasses both its studios and networks businesses. (In his memo to staff, Kilar said the gaming unit would be part of the Studios and Networks group but did not offer commentary around a potential sale.)
In an interview with THR, Kilar said the changes to WarnerMedia reflect his plan to turn it into a consumer-facing operation with a focus on its streaming and global businesses. “It became pretty clear that we needed to have one content organization to make it easier for us to make decisions to greenlight the best possible stories that we can then take increasingly direct to consumers,” he said.
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