Warner Bros. Discovery Buys Turkish Streamer BluTV

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has acquired Turkish streamer BluTV.

The U.S. media large already had a 35% stake within the eight-year-old streamer together with content material offers in place.

At the moment’s information ups that stake to a majority and builds on David Zaslav’s declaration throughout the firm’s Q3 outcomes name that it will be allocating capital in the direction of progress initiatives all over the world.

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 equivalent to Recreation of Thrones and The Final Of Us and youngsters channels Cartoon Community and Cartoonito have been added to BluTV.

Jamie Cooke, WBD’s Normal Supervisor overseeing Turkey, the Center East and CEE, mentioned Turkey had “been an necessary 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 mixture of compelling Turkish content material and a broad vary of one of the best worldwide sequence and reveals from Warner Bros. Discovery 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 progress since day one has made us part of one of many largest media firms on this planet.”

The acquisition coming within the quiet post-Christmas week may mark the beginning of a particularly busy yr for WBD. Simply previous to Christmas, a bombshell assembly between Zaslav and Paramount World boss Bob Bakish could also be a precursor to a merger between the 2 giants, whereas the corporate remains to be making strategic adjustments because of the Warner merger in 2022.