Cinedigm said it agreed to acquire The Film Detective, a content company with two free ad supported streaming channels and a library with 10,000 films and TV episodes.
Financial Terms were not disclosed.
After the merger, Cinedigm said The Film Detective will continue to operate independently under founder and CEO Philip Hopkins, who will become president of The Film Detective.
“We are very proud to welcome Phil and The Film Detective to the Cinedigm family and look forward to Phil’s continued strong leadership as we grow the business together,” said Cinedigm CEO Chris McGurk. “The Film Detective’s library is currently profitable, and with synergies and expanded distribution we believe we can quickly and significantly increase both revenues and profits from both the library and The Film Detective’s two streaming channels.”
The Film Detective’s channels are the eponymous The Film Detective, which was launched in 2018 and shows chassis movies, and Lone Star, which was launched earlier this year and shows classic westerns. Dish Network’s Sling TV, Sinclair Broadcast Group,s’ Stirr, Plex TV, Distro TV and Vizion carry The Film Detective channel.
Some of the titles in The Film Detective’s library are Dementia 13, Abbott and Costello in African Screams, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, Shirley Temple in The Little Princess, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour in My Favorite Brunette and Fred Astaire and June Powell in Royal Wedding.
Cinedigm said it expects to leverage its Matchpoint technology platform to accelerate The Film Detective’s distribution across Cinedigm’s network of more than 100 digital retail partners. It also plans to expand distribution of The Film Detectives two channels, and launch several new genre channels in the coming quarters.
“I am thrilled to reach this acquisition agreement with Cinedigm, which will give The Film Detective the firepower to grow our content library and streaming channels much faster than before,” said Hopkins. “Cinedigm has been a long-term independent leader in quality content distribution and streaming and I believe their capabilities will help take this business I have built over the years to an even higher level.”
The acquisition is subject to completion of definitive documents and any closing conditions to be agreed upon.
