AT&T Is Reportedly Looking To Buy Crunchyroll, Otter Media

If you get your anime fix from Crunchyroll, you may have to deal with AT&T in the future. According to a new report, it seems the media company is about to go in on a deal that would give it full control of Crunchyroll.

Rumors of the deal have circulated for quite awhile now, but a new report by Recode says AT&T is going after the purchase now that AT&T has acquired Time Warner Inc. The multi-billion dollar deal was recently approved, and AT&T is looking to acquire all of Otter Media, a company it currently co-owns with The Chernin Group.

The deal, which is said to close this summer, has been in the works for years. Sources say the purchase can go through now that Time Warner Inc. has been bought, and the exchange will give AT&T full control of Crunchyroll as well as FullScreen, a popular brand that began on Youtube years ago.

So far, there is no word on what AT&T plans to do with the Otter Media acquisition, but the deal will reportedly cost more than a billion dollars. Back with AT&T began working in The Chernin Group in 2014, the company filtered in $500 million to the project, and Otter Media has grown its user base since.

For anime fans, it isn’t clear how this acquisition could effect Crunchyroll’s services. The site is the premiere place online to stream anime, and its recent partnership with Funimation brought dozens of top-tier titles to its catalog.

Crunchyroll’s impending turn to AT&T is a big move, but the company is not the first anime venture to go big. Last year, Funimation announced it was begin bought out by Sony Pictures Television.

If you are not familiar with the business between Sony and Funimation, then you have a bit to catch up on. The deal began last July as Deadline broke news about Funimation’s acquisition. The report said the anime distributor would be subsumed by Sony TV after the latter purchased 95% of Funimation’s stock for $143 million. Sony assessed the company’s worth to be a cool $150 million, and Funimation agreed with the acquisition’s terms as it was finalized in October 2017.

What do you think of this deal? Do you support the acquisition? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!