Sony Is Now in Talks to Purchase Crunchyroll From AT&T

A few months ago, there were some murmurs that Sony was going to be buying the anime streaming service Crunchyroll from AT&T. Now, there is more to talk about, and it appears that AT&T is hoping to sell Crunchyroll to Sony.

Reuters reports that the deal would be worth over $957 million and would allow Sony to better compete against companies like Netflix. In addition, the report states that Sony has exclusive negotiation rights at the moment and wants to use Crunchyroll to “distribute its own entertainment content, including films and music.”

Here’s what this is sounding like to me, and I may be very incorrect. It sounds like Sony wants to acquire Crunchyroll and then essentially merge the licensed anime content with its own anime streaming service, Funimation (purchased back in 2017), and then use Crunchyroll for new original content (and possibly keep Crunchyroll Originals on there).

With Crunchyroll and Funimation being possibly the two biggest anime streaming services, I have big problems with one acquiring the other. If that were to happen, there would most definitely be a virtual monopoly in the anime streaming game. Yes, Netflix is upping its game. However, it’s still not to the same level in terms of anime content.

I think that there could be some antitrust issues with this deal going through, but I’m sure I’ll be proven wrong. What do you think of the potential for this deal? Should Sony acquire Crunchyroll? Would it be possible for Crunchyroll to buy itself out and become independent? That last one is most likely not, but a nice thought.