While major digital streaming
platforms like Netflix are sure to offer respectable libraries of anime series
and films (some of them possibly original and exclusive to each service), there
are streamers that cater only to anime content. There is Funimation, founded in
1994 as an anime dubber and distributor and expanding into its own cable
channel and in-website content streaming. Then there is Crunchyroll, founded in
2006 as a website illegally streaming fan-subtitled anime before going legit in
2009 and becoming part of WarnerMedia. Sony Pictures Television acquired
Funimation in 2018 and, in 2020, used the latter in discussions to acquire
Crunchyroll. But the US Justice Department is crying foul.
Anime News Network tells us that the United States Department of
Justice has on Wednesday, March 24, moved to extend its review of Sony Pictures
Television’s planned acquisition of anime streaming distributor Crunchyroll.
The DOJ is seeing red flags in that SPT already has a major anime distributor
in Funimation since nearly three years ago, and the media giant’s proposal to
combine the two platforms into a unified anime streaming service is being
considered an antitrust issue. Sony had put down $1.175 billion in the
acquisition of Crunchyroll via Funimation.
Where anime is concerned, Funimation
and Crunchyroll are probably two of the biggest names in the distribution
industry stateside, while Netflix, Amazon and HBO Max are more the “content + anime”
sort despite their own impressive selections. The Justice Department is looking
into the possibility that combining the two under Sony ownership will limit
choices, especially for Japanese anime production companies looking for US
partners in licensing their works. There is concern that Sony may be moving into
an unprecedented level of influence and control over the anime industry in
Japan and overseas, especially as Crunchyroll also has manga publishing and
anime convention organizing outside its main anime distribution gig.
Already Sony has Japanese anime
studios A-1 Pictures and CloverWorks as subsidiaries, while Funimation in the
US has been consolidated with similar acquisition-distribution companies as
Wakanim (France) and Madman Anime Group (Australia). Adding Crunchyroll into
the mix gives Sony a massive anime-making and distributing juggernaut. The question
now is whether the US DOJ can push this as an antitrust case, and if they can
win.
Image: Game Rant
0 comments:
Post a Comment