Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has acquired Turkish streamer BluTV.
The U.S. media big already had a 35% stake within the eight-year-old streamer together with content material offers in place, and has upped stake to 100%. At this time’s information builds on WBD boss David Zaslav’s declaration through the firm’s Q3 outcomes name that it will be allocating capital in direction of development initiatives world wide.
BluTV launched in 2016 in Turkey, expanded to MENA in 2018 and in 2021 partnered with Discovery+ as Discovery (previous to the WBD merger) took a 35% stake. That partnership deepened earlier this yr when HBO content material akin to Sport of Thrones and The Final Of Us, and youngsters channels Cartoon Community and Cartoonito had been added to BluTV.
Jamie Cooke, WBD’s Normal Supervisor overseeing Turkey, the Center East and CEE, stated Turkey had “been an vital funding territory for us for over 20 years.”
“The acquisition of BluTV brings Turkey’s first native SVoD participant into our portfolio,” he added. “The mix of compelling Turkish content material and a broad vary of the perfect worldwide collection and exhibits from WBD is an unbeatable recipe to be domestically related and profitable.”
BluTV CEO Denis Şaşmaz Oflaz added: “As Turkey’s main native subscription video platform, we’re proud that our regular development since day one has made us part of one of many largest media corporations on this planet.”
The acquisition coming within the quiet post-Christmas week might mark the beginning of an especially busy yr for WBD. Simply previous to Christmas, a bombshell assembly between Zaslav and Paramount International boss Bob Bakish was reported and might be a precursor to a merger between the 2 giants, whereas the corporate continues to be making strategic modifications as a result of Warner merger.
