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.
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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.
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