UK Anime Network, UK Anime News, Reviews and Articles
Sony in final talks to acquire Crunchyroll

Sony in final talks to acquire Crunchyroll

Written by Ross Locksley on 30 Oct 2020



Nikkei Asia are reporting that Sony has entered into final negotiations to acquire Crunchyroll, the major competitor to it's own Funimation streaming service.

Sony has been aggressively targeting the anime market since it's 2017 acquisition of Funimation. Under Sony's influence, UK distribution partner Anime Ltd was hurriedly dropped (leading to a panicked stock sell-off) while Funimation acquired former partner and pioneering UK distributor Manga Entertainment to handle it's UK operations. This paved the way for many of the UK company's titles to be streamed on Funimation, as well as providing a corporate springboard for all of Funimation's physical releases.

An acquisition of Crunchyroll would add 70 million free (and 3 million paid) members to the 1 million subscribers at Funimation. A further 1,000 licensed shows would also become available, creating possibly the largest repository of online anime in history.

With Crunchyroll creating its own content, and Netflix also opting to generate wholly-owned IP like Eden, it's likely that the market for licenses will become highly competitive in coming years. 

Nikkei's report credits The Association of Japanese Animations with the following figures:

In 2018, the global anime market was worth approximately $21 billion dollars, 1.5 times the size of the same market in 2013. The overseas market accounts for half of that demand.

This likely explains Manga Entertainment's deluge of articles on representation in anime on it's website (such as this one by Timi Ofarn), as well as Managing Director Jerome Mazandarani's spirited Facebook comments defending the globalisation of the anime industry. He will, it seems, be at the vanguard of the new anime world order.


Ross Locksley
About Ross Locksley

Ross founded the UK Anime Network waaay back in 1995 and works in and around the anime world in his spare time.


COMMENT AND DISCUSS
blog comments powered by Disqus
LATEST NEWS
Overlord anime arrives on Netflix April 14th

posted by Ross Locksley on 27 Mar 2024

Walkure to release W Encore album to commemorate final live tour

posted by Ross Locksley on 27 Mar 2024

The Grimm Variations official Netflix trailer

posted by Ross Locksley on 26 Mar 2024

Humble Bundle create ecchi action collection - Slice Dice and Everything Nice

posted by Ross Locksley on 26 Mar 2024

SandLand the Series is out now on Disney Plus

posted by Ross Locksley on 26 Mar 2024

Titan Manga announces Sword of the Titans

posted by Ross Locksley on 26 Mar 2024

Netflix drop new Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance Trailer

posted by Ross Locksley on 23 Mar 2024

Kotaku loses Editor-In-Chief after site ordered to deprioritize news coverage

posted by Ross Locksley on 22 Mar 2024


VIEW ALL