Chernin and AT&T Reportedly Set to Buy Fullscreen

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Fullscreen is said to be close to a deal to sell a majority stake to Otter Media, a joint venture of Chernin Group and AT&T.

The pending transaction would value Fullscreen, which claims 3.5 billion views a month for the programming streamed on its YouTube channels, at between $200 million and $300 million. Fullscreen Chief Executive George Strompolos, formerly of YouTube, is expected to continue to lead the company. The discussions were first reported on website Re/code.

Chernin last year co-led a $30 million investment round with Comcast Corp. in Fullscreen. If completed, the Fullscreen deal would be Otter Media’s second acquisition of the month. The joint venture bought Creativebug, an online video arts and crafts company, for $10 million last Monday.

Investors have been angling to scoop up companies with large YouTube followings for some time. Disney acquired Maker Studios last spring for $500 million with an additional earn out of $450 million. The multichannel network generates more than 5.5 billion views a month.

Otter Media was formed in April and announced it would invest $500 million in acquiring and launching large-scale video services. The joint venture also holds a majority stake in Crunchyroll, a subscription video service for Japanese anime and Asian content.

Staff reporter Melissah Yang can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @MelissahYang for the latest in L.A. tech news.

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