×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
NEWS: AT&T Buys Out Crunchyroll's Otter Media


Goto page 1, 2  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
ARC-1300



Joined: 06 Feb 2012
Posts: 360
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 5:23 pm Reply with quote
so not only do they set out to ruin HBO,but now Crunchyroll?

God Dangit!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
TasteyCookie



Joined: 19 Jan 2017
Posts: 421
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 5:29 pm Reply with quote
Well we expected this to happen sometime with ATT trying to buy out most of its media partners. We'll have to see if they decide to change the business at all, or if they just leave CR to run as is (which is my hope/guess.)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kotomikun



Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 5:31 pm Reply with quote
Only a matter of time until the whole planet is owned by a single mishmash of corporations. Then I guess they'll move on to Mars.

We really should have banned corporate mergers, acquisitions, and "holding companies" ages ago, but rich people and businesses have so much government influence now that it's probably impossible to do anything of the sort. Monopoly is better known as a deeply ironic board game than as an actual problem in the real world.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Gasero



Joined: 24 Jul 2009
Posts: 939
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:00 pm Reply with quote
I hope we don't have to say goodbye to Crunchyroll whenever ATT needs to cut loose some weight to make their target stock price
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address
LegitPancake



Joined: 26 Jun 2017
Posts: 1294
Location: Texas, USA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:04 pm Reply with quote
Hopefully they'll make Vrv accessible outside the US, fix a lot of their server issues, give CR a secure https connection, and finalize the HTML5 player. Other than that, I'm not really looking forward to this.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
sdsichero
Subscriber



Joined: 15 Oct 2009
Posts: 157
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:07 pm Reply with quote
Crap.

Hope this doesn't mean I have to drop Crunchyroll Sad
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Chrono1000





PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:09 pm Reply with quote
On one hand that means Crunchyroll has more money for licensing anime and improving their website which is a good thing. On the other hand this might result in additional restrictions on the type of anime that they license which would be a bad thing. Hopefully AT&T won't mess with the business operations of a company that they just bought.
Back to top
kusanagi-sama



Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 1723
Location: Wichita Falls, TX
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:47 pm Reply with quote
AT&T slowly becoming Ma Bell again (pre-1984-ish breakup). I do hope they improve Crunchyroll, otherwise, I'm not expecting much.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address Yahoo Messenger My Anime My Manga
Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13555
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 7:03 pm Reply with quote
Chrono1000 wrote:
On one hand that means Crunchyroll has more money for licensing anime and improving their website which is a good thing. On the other hand this might result in additional restrictions on the type of anime that they license which would be a bad thing. Hopefully AT&T won't mess with the business operations of a company that they just bought.

The first point is the only good I could see coming from this buyout. While I normally use VRV, there is the thought that CR could get more "worldwide except China and Japan" simulcasts.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Ushio



Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Posts: 630
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 7:22 pm Reply with quote
kotomikun wrote:
Only a matter of time until the whole planet is owned by a single mishmash of corporations. Then I guess they'll move on to Mars.

We really should have banned corporate mergers, acquisitions, and "holding companies" ages ago, but rich people and businesses have so much government influence now that it's probably impossible to do anything of the sort. Monopoly is better known as a deeply ironic board game than as an actual problem in the real world.


There is no monopoly in film/TV production or distribution. There are in fact more companies throwing more money at it than ever before just not at older obsolete distribution methods.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 7:48 pm Reply with quote
In this incarnation AT&T is the corporate descendant of Southwestern Bell, one of the RBOC's ( Regional Bell Operating Company ) created by the 1984 AT&T break-up. SBC eventually re-united most of the RBOC's and then bought out AT&T assuming it's name.

This AT&T is a huge & hugely complex entity. Keep in mind that Time Warner was at one point on the same trajectory but ended up selling off it's Cable assets and the remains of AOL. These big conglomerates always seem to make sense on "paper" but they prove unwieldy and seem to stumble easily.

We will just have to wait and see how Crunchyroll is impacted by being a part of AT&T. I suspect that AT&T's management might be asking themselves, "Crunchy what?"

Mark Gosdin
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 8:49 pm Reply with quote
TasteyCookie wrote:
Well we expected this to happen sometime with ATT trying to buy out most of its media partners. We'll have to see if they decide to change the business at all, or if they just leave CR to run as is (which is my hope/guess.)


It's kind of a crapshoot. I'm not sure what they intend to do with streaming services. When they buy phone and Internet service providers, they gradually make it such that the customers in those other companies go by AT&T's rules. For anything else, AT&T usually leaves them alone.

In this case, however, AT&T owns DirecTV and now companies that provide content to DirecTV's competitors. I have no idea how they'll approach this, whether they'll withhold the content from people not under their umbrella or if they'll let the existing audience continue to consume the content. (Our household uses AT&T for phone and DISH for television, as well as various minor streaming services.)

kotomikun wrote:
Only a matter of time until the whole planet is owned by a single mishmash of corporations. Then I guess they'll move on to Mars.

We really should have banned corporate mergers, acquisitions, and "holding companies" ages ago, but rich people and businesses have so much government influence now that it's probably impossible to do anything of the sort. Monopoly is better known as a deeply ironic board game than as an actual problem in the real world.


A bit of trivia here: The original purpose of the Monopoly board game was to teach children about the danger of business monopolies.

mgosdin wrote:
This AT&T is a huge & hugely complex entity. Keep in mind that Time Warner was at one point on the same trajectory but ended up selling off it's Cable assets and the remains of AOL. These big conglomerates always seem to make sense on "paper" but they prove unwieldy and seem to stumble easily.

Mark Gosdin


Ah, do you mean like how Maytag lost most of its influence as a company because the executives bought too many smaller companies, causing them to lose so much money that they were eventually bought by Whirlpool?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
RealMTL



Joined: 09 Jun 2018
Posts: 178
PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 9:13 pm Reply with quote
I hope this doesn't affect VRV at all.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
MrBonk



Joined: 23 Jan 2015
Posts: 192
PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:14 am Reply with quote
kotomikun wrote:
Only a matter of time until the whole planet is owned by a single mishmash of corporations. Then I guess they'll move on to Mars.

We really should have banned corporate mergers, acquisitions, and "holding companies" ages ago, but rich people and businesses have so much government influence now that it's probably impossible to do anything of the sort. Monopoly is better known as a deeply ironic board game than as an actual problem in the real world.

Pretty sure you described the plot of Armored Core 2.
Move to Mars, all the mega corps fight for dominance!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5316
PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 4:46 am Reply with quote
Will this change anything? or will this be one of those things that we've forgotten about in a few months time.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group