The multi-million-dollar Mickey Mouse empire announced Monday that the company will be acquiring the YouTube-established production house Maker Studios. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the deal would result in a $950M of revenue if the projections are correct.
Maker Studios has been in charge of the production of YouTube material since 2009 and as of today is ranked among the top five partners of the website and features the work of talents like Swedish gamer PewDiePie and singer Mike Tompkins. Maker Studios is behind more than 55,000 YouTube channels and its subscriber base has reached the 380-million mark. As reported on their official website, they have managed to pull in more than 4.5 million views a month.
Robert Iger, Disney CEO, stated that the acquisition of Maker Studios will represent a great benefit for his company. Iger believes that “short-form online video is growing at an astonishing pace and with Maker Studios, Disney will now be at the center of this dynamic industry with an unmatched combination of advanced technology and programming expertise and capabilities (…)”.
Disney also announced that Maker Studios will remain located at their Culver City headquarters, in California. Maker CEO, Ynon Kriez will now report to Disney CFO Jay Rasulo. As mentioned before, this move can represent a huge gain for the Disney company because it seems the perfect decision that such powerful corporation as this one can make in order to dominate the online market and specially take over the young YouTube audiences.