It’s official: after finally getting together, breaking up, seeing other people, then trying to get back together but with others thinking about getting in their way, Crunchyroll-chan and Funimation-kun are married. The perfect soap opera…or shoujo manga.
So earlier this month, Sony paid AT&T $1.175 billion in cash for Crunchyroll. I guess the US Department of Justice did not feel the need to block the merger. Which isn’t a big surprise considering Disney can buy Fox’s movie assets and WarnerMedia wants to become one with the Discovery network. A Sony-owned Crunchyroll does make them the market leader in anime by a long shot, but anime is still niche compared to most other services’ multi-genre approach.
But unfortunately, we don’t have any answers to the big questions: what is going to change, and when. The announcement was revealed with relatively little fanfare by either Crunchyroll or Funimation, and fans who were hoping for some sort of FAQ or outline for the next step(s) were left disappointed.
Rather lackluster compared to this announcement when they first teamed up years ago:
Obviously, the deal doesn’t do Sony much good to keep Crunchyroll wholly separate, but to make only one of the two their trademark means giving up a lot of brand identity. So why it may seem redundant to, say, run two different stores, Crunchyroll has a lot of its own subsidiaries and services that would require a lot of extra work to update to the Funimation name.
This is all stuff most of the anime fandom has been pointing out for a while, but now, it’s not a what-if. After a lot of back-and-forth between the two corporations, the deal has been finalized. Crunchyroll recently announced they had reached 5 million subscribers, so at $1.175 billion, that’s about $235 a subscriber, a rather nice bargain considering AT&T originally paid around $400 per subscriber.
Even if you go by 4 million subscribers, which is how many Crunchyroll had 6 months ago, that’s still less than $300 each. In other words, this was another example of a great investment for AT&T!…not. And the CEO who led all of these deals is still getting paid $1 million until at least January. And plus gets a $274,000 pension.
Man, why didn’t I major in Leader of a Big Business Who Makes Terrible Decisions And Still Gets Paid Big Bucks in college??
Also, can we take a step back and refer to the ill-fated AnimeTube Kickstarter that claimed licenses don’t cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars? Sony paid $1.175 billion in cash to AT&T. So if, as the AnimeTube Kickstarter claimed, licenses maxed out around $100,000, Sony could have spent that money on about 12,000 new anime licenses. In cash. And from a Japanese company that everyone knows versus foreign randos.
I mean, obviously Sony values Crunchyroll’s subscriber lists, but the catalog is obviously just as if not more valuable. And this should be a reminder at how costs for picking up new shows to stream just continues to climb.
Which, of course, puts pressure on Funimation/Crunchyroll’s rivals, particularly HIDIVE. They’ve surely been making plans for if this day would come to somehow compete with Sony’s giant pocketbook. It will be interesting to see their next moves if they want to remain independent and not just be pigeonholed into leftovers each new season or end up dedicated to more retro shows that other companies already focus on. I think they could do well with older series like NANA that tend to be pricier to license due to the music, creator(s) royalties, or whatever. Or maybe they need to add an ad-included tier, whether paid but cheaper or free, to compete. Perhaps they should also push for a bigger partnership with Peacock, which, despite being backed by a media conglomerate, is struggling against the streaming giants like Netflix or the upcoming Warner Bros. Discovery.
Either way, anime streaming is entering a new phase, and while this may not be the biggest move in the Great Streaming Wars, it’s certainly the biggest news for anime fans whether they prefer to have as many shows available on one service or competition and avoid any monopolies. My guess is that Crunchyroll and Funimation will operate together through VRV (which is also part of the sale) as they have previously. Not so much in terms of new licenses but in features and updates. Like, can they get the Crunchyroll Manga app to work for me two days in a row? Please??