Reaction: AT&T Buys Rooster Teeth/Crunchyroll Parent Company Otter Media

Here we go.

This past weekend, Rooster Teeth wanted everyone at RTX to know that they intend to spend $2.5 million in content this year. That’s a paltry number whence compared to say a Netflix that expects to spend that just on toilet paper alone probably by next Friday. But with a subscriber count that reportedly counts a couple hundred thousand, it’s a sizeable investment which may have inspired anyone to ask, “Where’d they get the money?”

AT&T just announced the acquisition of Otter Media, months after making the landmark deal for what would become WarnerMedia (TNT, TBS, HBO, etc). The deal gives AT&T a digital established brand along with all of the linear-established brands. This includes VRV (the multi-channel offering that also has independent contracting deals in place with Mondo, Cartoon Hangover, and Funimation), Fullscreen, Ellation, and with the aforementioned Rooster Teeth and Crunchyroll.

Fans online are excited as fuck about the possibilities. Could Crunchyroll licenses show up on Adult Swim’s Toonami? Could RwBy be in play? All of these ideas are certainly possible now and could be exciting prospects for the future. This comes off the back of AT&T’s announcement of additional skinny bundles that leverage their technological advances with that of popular brands they already own like U-verse, AT&T Wireless, and DirecTV. As Netflix knows, content is king, and subscription numbers appear to be the future of content production budgets rather than ad revenue, so there’s a lot at stake here with these recent acquisitions. It’s why Sinclair wants Tribune, why Disney wants FOX, and why Netflix has become the single biggest content disruptor since Youtube.