The Chernin Group, the media holding company founded by former News Corp. chief Peter Chernin, has acquired a majority stake in Crunchyroll, a streaming video service that specializes in anime content.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but AllThingsD reported in October that TCG’s stake would value Crunchyroll at less than $100 million. Crunchyroll’s senior management team will maintain a “significant” stake in the company along with existing investor TV Tokyo.
Founded in 2007, Tokyo-based Crunchyroll offers a mix of free and subscription-based services, offering more than 25,000 episodes and 15,000 hours of content. Crunchyroll, which has raised almost million and has more than 200,000 premium subscribers, streams services to a range of platforms, including PC browsers, iOS and Android devices, the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Apple TV, Roku boxes and several models of smart TVs.
TCG said it will work with Crunchyroll and its team to grow its existing anime business and to use it as a platform to launch new non-anime channels across multiple different genres. Chernin reportedly made a $500 million bid for Hulu in March.
