Otter Media
Subsidiaries | Rooster Teeth Gunpowder & Sky (JV) |
---|---|
Website | www |
Otter Media Holdings, LLC was an American digital media company owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The company was founded in 2014 by AT&T and The Chernin Group as a holding company of the anime streaming service, Crunchyroll who the latter invested in 2013.
In addition to Crunchyroll, it owned
History
In April 2014, AT&T and the Chernin Group established Otter Media as the 50:50 joint venture to offer OTT services.[7]
In January 2016, Otter Media invested in
In January 2018, Otter Media bought the remaining stake in Ellation, the owner of VRV and Crunchyroll, and integrated it as Otter Media's Consumer Division.[5] On June 20, 2018, Recode reported that AT&T was close to buying out Chernin's stake in Otter Media, on the heel of its acquisition of Time Warner (whose digital media holdings included Machinima).[11] On August 7, 2018, AT&T announced their acquisition of Chernin Group's stake in Otter Media for an undisclosed amount, believed to be around $1 billion.[12] On August 22, 2018, Ellation formed Ellation Studios, a production studio with facilities in both the U.S. and Japan, to produce original content for Crunchyroll and VRV.[13][14] On December 4, 2018, Otter announced a broad restructuring that would result in the layoff of about ten percent of its staff. As part of the reorganization, Machinima, which had been part of Warner Bros. Digital Networks, was re-organized under Otter Media. Ellation will now house Rooster Teeth, Crunchyroll, and VRV, while Machinima became a unit of Fullscreen.[15][16][17]
On March 4, 2019, following the reconstruction of WarnerMedia's businesses, Otter Media became part of
On December 9, 2020,
Assets
- Rooster Teeth - now a division of Warner Bros. Discovery Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment
- Fullscreen - team laid off and company absorbed into WBD Ad Sales[26]
- McBeard
- Reelio
- Machinima, Inc. - merged into Fullscreen in 2019
- Hello Sunshine (joint venture with Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rodsky and Emerson Creative) - sold
- Funimation Global Groupin 2021
- Crunchyroll EMEA
- VRV
- Crunchyroll Expo
- Crunchyroll Anime Awards
- Crunchyroll Games
- Gunpowder & Sky[27] (Joint venture with Floris Bauer)
References
- ^ "AT&T Digital Executive Named CEO of Otter Media". hollywoodreporter.com. February 12, 2018.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (April 22, 2014). "AT&T, Chernin Group Invest $500 Million in Over-the-Top Video Venture". Variety.com. Retrieved September 17, 2016.
- ^ Roettgers, Janko (August 3, 2015). "Chernin, AT&T Set Brand for New Online Video Venture: Ellation (Exclusive)". Variety.com. Retrieved September 17, 2016.
- ^ Roettgers, Janko (November 4, 2015). "Chernin's Otter Media Aims for More Than $200M Revenue This Year". Variety.com. Retrieved September 17, 2016.
- ^ a b Roettgers, Janko (January 24, 2018). "AT&T-Chernin J.V. Otter Media Buys Out Remaining Fullscreen, Crunchyroll Owners". Variety. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
- ^ "Otter Media Buys Remainder of Its Digital Businesses Fullscreen, Ellation". The Hollywood Reporter. January 24, 2018. Retrieved December 21, 2022.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (September 30, 2014). "AT&T, Chernin Group Name 2 Execs to Run Over-the-Top Video Venture". Variety. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (January 13, 2016). "Van Toffler Launches Digital Studio Backed by Chernin Group, AT&T". Variety. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved January 15, 2017.
- ^ Busch, Anita (November 21, 2016). "Reese Witherspoon, Otter Media Pact For New Company Hello Sunshine". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on January 16, 2017. Retrieved January 15, 2017.
- ^ "Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine Sold for $900 Million to Media Company Backed by Blackstone". August 2, 2021.
- ^ "AT&T is getting ready to acquire all of Otter Media, the streaming video company it co-owns with Peter Chernin". Recode. Archived from the original on June 20, 2018. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (August 7, 2018). "AT&T Buys Out Chernin Group's Stake in Otter Media". Variety. Retrieved November 22, 2018.
- ^ Roettgers, Janko (August 22, 2018). "AT&T's Ellation Launches Studios in Burbank and Tokyo to Produce Crunchyroll Originals". variety.com.
- ^ "Deeper Dive—AT&T has extra SVOD gems in Crunchyroll and VRV". www.fiercevideo.com. August 23, 2018.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (December 4, 2018). "AT&T's Otter Media Lays Off 10% of Staff, Will Absorb Machinima in Reorg". Variety. Retrieved December 5, 2018.
- ^ Weiss, Geoff (January 22, 2019). "After Porting Its Creator Network To Fullscreen, Machinima Wipes Seminal YouTube Channel". Tubefilter. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
- ^ Alexander, Julia (January 19, 2019). "Machinima, one of YouTube's biggest and oldest channels, goes dark". The Verge. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
- ^ Feiner, Lauren (March 4, 2019). "WarnerMedia reorganizes its leadership team after AT&T acquisition". CNBC. Retrieved March 4, 2019.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (May 31, 2019). "WarnerMedia Reorg Gives Otter Media's Tony Goncalves Oversight of Streaming Service Development". Variety. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
- ^ Coats, Cayla (September 6, 2019). "Crunchyroll and VIZ Media Europe Group Enter a New Relationship". Crunchyroll. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
- ^ Mateo, Alex (April 2, 2020). "Viz Media Europe SAS Changes Name to Crunchyroll SAS". Anime News Network. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
- Crunchyroll SAS. April 2, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
- ^ "Ellation". LinkedIn. Retrieved April 3, 2020.
Ellation (a Crunchyroll company) was formerly the Consumer Division of WarnerMedia's Otter Media, which included industry leading brands Crunchyroll, Rooster Teeth, and VRV. We are transitioning the Ellation company name to focus on our team in Chișinău, Moldova.
- ^ "Crunchyroll | About". Crunchyroll. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
VRV (U.S.) and Eye See Movies (Germany) are also Crunchyroll brands.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (December 9, 2020). "AT&T to Sell Crunchyroll to Sony's Funimation for $1.175 Billion". Variety. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
- ^ https://www.linkedin.com/company/fullscreen-inc[self-published source]
- ^ "About Us - Gunpowder & Sky". Gunpowder & Sky. August 22, 2017. Retrieved July 19, 2018.