The anime streaming wars lost a competitor when Funimation and Crunchyroll joined forces after their parent companies Sony and AT&T finally closed the book on a billion-dollar deal that had been months in the making.
Sony, the owner of the popular anime streaming service Funimation, reported that it acquired AT&T-owned Crunchyroll for $1.75 billion dollars. Rumors of this big anime streaming deal began as early as August of this year then picked up steam in October before the official news came down in December.
Funimation and Crunchyroll were once competitors in a race with Netflix and other platforms to acquire licensed anime to stream on their platforms. What set Crunchyroll and Funimation apart from others were their lineups of simul-cast anime that afforded fans the opportunity to watch subtitled or sometimes even dubbed versions of popular anime at the same time as when they aired in Japan. The two companies were in constant competition for the rights to licensed anime to fill out their lineups each season, but now there is consolidation with Funimation now adding Crunchyroll’s full library to their service.
Negotiations for this deal first began in August when The Information reported that the two companies were in talks, but Sony balked at the billion-dollar asking price. Nikkei Asia later reported in October that the deal was still on and Sony could spend $957 million for Crunchyroll before finally pulling the trigger on a deal.
Details are scant about what this deal means for fans subscribing to one or both services, but what's known is that both companies have lucrative licensing deals with some of Japan’s most popular anime studios. Crunchyroll recently acquired anime distributor Viz Media Europe and inked a deal with the Korean online comic platform WebToons to turn some its more popular titles into anime. It also acquired HiDive, which has the rights to the titles produced by studio Sentai Filmworks. Sony and Funimation has the distribution company Aniplex, which owns anime production companies A-1 Pictures and Cloverworks.
Right now watching all the simul-cast anime each season requires subscription services to two different services. If this deal means that everything will be in one place each season, at the very least watching anime will be a lot more convenient.
Source: Crunchyroll , Nikkei Asia , The Information