Streamticker: The biggest streaming mergers and acquisitions of 2024
The 2024 edition of Streamticker, recapping the streaming industry’s most momentous mergers and acquisitions of 2023, kicked off with Disney’s gobbling up the last extant portions of Hulu, as Comcast ceded its remaining 33% stake. But if the late-2023 deal marked only the quiet conclusion of an already-silent partnership, the much noisier news of Jan. 6, 2025, found Disney absorbing sports-centric streamer Fubo and merging it with Hulu Live + TV.
The new merger scuttles one of the splashier deals of 2024, which found Disney/ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox joining forces in the megabundle sports streaming app Venu Sports. The deal immediately signaled the end of Fubo’s widely publicised lawsuit against Venu Sports and would appear to leave erstwhile Venu Sports partner Warner Bros. Discovery out in the cold. Disney’s Fubo acquisition (and the inevitable Fubo + Hulu + Live polynomials to follow) is projected to shake out over the next 12–18 months.
In the meantime, let’s review the done (or more nearly done) M&A deals that reshuffled the streaming industry in 2024.
(One high-profile merger you won’t see here is the 2-decades-in-the-making DirecTV acquisition of Dish Network and Sling TV from EchoStar. The deal was announced on Sept. 30, 2024, then nixed on Nov. 21, with the Dish bondholders’ rejection of the exchange debt terms cited as the sticking point that scuttled it—at least for now.)
ZIXI JOINS CLEARHAVEN PARTNERS
In June 2024, Boston-based private equity firm Clearhaven Partners made an undisclosed but “significant investment” in IP video solutions provider Zixi, with both parties saying the move would enable Zixi to take growth to the next stage.
Founded in 2006, Zixi provides solutions to customers such as Amazon Prime Video, AWS Elemental Media Connect, Fox, MLB, the NHL, Roku, and YouTube TV. Clearhaven Partners is building a portfolio of enterprise and B2B software investments, including streaming solutions developer Wowza.
IP video solutions provider Zixi joins Clearhaven Partners.
Analysts quoted by Zixi forecast IP-based video systems to reach $8 billion a year in the next decade, with a 30% compound annual growth rate. In 2023, Zixi’s annual recurring revenue from OTT customers grew 100% year over year. Its broadcaster customers increased more than 30%, and its Software-Defined Video Platform was used to broadcast more than 1.5 million live sporting events. In addition, Zixi claims to provide the lowest total cost of ownership for large-scale IP video delivery deployments, resulting in. up to 60% lower egress costs.
In September 2024, former ThinkAnalytics boss Marc Aldrich succeeded Gordon Brooks as Zixi CEO, and Brooks moved to executive chairman. In December, Zixi announced a partnership with sports rights acquisition and content distribution company DICE Verse for distribution of DICE Verse’s IP channels.
JW PLAYER AND CONNATIX MERGE
JW Player (JWP), a video streaming and data insights platform, merged with Connatix, a private equity-backed video delivery and monetisation solution, forming JWP Connatix. The pair believe they are better united in order to capitalise on the shift of eyeballs to CTV. A statement announcing the pact claimed it would create the largest independent global video network across CTV and online video, reaching more than 1 billion unique users and delivering 30 billion-plus combined video plays and ad impressions every month.
JW Player and Connatix merged to form the self-described “industry’s largest video technology and monetisation platform.”
“How and where viewers consume video is rapidly changing,” says David Kashak, chairman of JWP Connatix. “As a result, media companies require innovative solutions that allow them to maximise audience engagement and help optimise revenue across disparate monetisation models, whether it be advertising, subscriptions or commerce.”
Dave Otten, who co-founded JWP in 2008, is CEO of the combined company, which is headquartered in New York City. He says, “[W]e are bringing together two knowledgeable, and dedicated teams, whose skill-sets and values are a perfect match. We could not be more excited about this partnership and look forward to shaping the future of digital video together.”
AMAGI BUYS ARGOID AI
Amagi, an India-based CTV solutions provider, acquired Silicon Valley startup Argoid AI, adding the latter’s AI capabilities, engineers, and data scientists to the company. Amagi will integrate Argoid AI’s content recommendation algorithms and programming automation tools into its Amagi NOW and Cloudport products. One aim is to improve solutions that will help transform FAST services into personalised streams.
“Amagi has been investing in AI/ML over the last couple of years,” says Baskar Subramanian, co-founder and CEO of Amagi. “We strongly believe in AI/ML’s pivotal role in transforming the Media and Entertainment industry, creating efficiencies, enhanced monetisation, and a superlative viewer experience. … The combined tech expertise of both companies will address key challenges in the streaming industry, such as content discoverability, viewer retention, and intelligent programming.”
MEDIAOCEAN ACQUIRES INNOVID
Mediaocean paid $500 million for fellow ad-tech company Innovid to better compete with the sector’s dominant player Google by creating an omnichannel ad platform across digital, social, streaming, and linear. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Israel, Innovid went public in 2021 when it was valued at $1.3 billion, losing much of that value since, though it is expected to report $150 million in revenue for 2024.
The acquisition by Mediaocean delists Innovid from the New York Stock Exchange. Innovid will be merged into a Mediaocean subsidiary, Flashtalking, an ad server for advertisers that Mediaocean bought in 2021 also for around $500 million. Innovid CEO and founder Zvika Netter is CEO of the new combined organisation, reporting to Mediaocean CEO and co-founder Bill Wise.
“There’s no other company, except for Google, that has everything in one place,” Wise told AdExchanger. “But what Google doesn’t have is neutrality and independence. … Marketers and their agencies are recognising that they don’t want to rely on the world’s largest sellers to provide their buy-side ad tech.”Netter adds, “We have no problem with the walled gardens. But we believe that the technology being used to deliver and measure advertising should be separate from the media business. We’re saying either buy and sell media or be in the business of delivery, data, measurement, and accountability. A walled garden is not a bad thing. We work with YouTube. We work with Netflix. We work with all the large media companies. And we deliver and measure ads across these platforms.”Mediaocean employs more than 1,000 people and generates $500 million annually. Its largest shareholder is the CVC investment fund. The acquisition was expected to close in early 2025.
DOLBY ADDS STREAMING SOLUTION AND CODEC LICENSES
Dolby Laboratories reported a strong financial performance for Q4 2024 and the full year, posting a total revenue of $1.27 billion, slightly down from $1.30 billion in 2023. In July, Dolby acquired THEO Technologies, the Belgium-based provider of playback solution THEOplayer, for $55 million. Dolby plans to combine THEO products with its own Millicast solution to deliver live experiences “with no perceptible difference between what you see in-person and what is streaming on your device.” The combined product range also includes THEOlive, a live-streaming solution that delivers ultra-low-latency streaming at scale, and Dolby Hybrik, a cloud-based media workflow management service.
Dolby acquired THEO Technologies and, with it, THEOplayer and THEOlive in July 2024.
“People want to engage with their content in real-time and have a more personal relationship with their content,” says Giles Baker, SVP of Dolby Cloud Solutions. “With Dolby Millicast, we’ve enabled service providers to improve the audiovisual experience and offer experiences that are delivered in real-time. Adding THEO’s suite of products creates a comprehensive cross-platform solution for sports and entertainment companies seeking to enable the most interactive real-time digital experiences.”
A month earlier, Dolby announced the buyout of GE Licensing, an innovator in patent licensing and management, from GE Aerospace for $429 million in an all-cash transaction. GE Licensing represents multiple consumer technology companies from Taiwan, South Korea, and China, with IP in electronics, smart systems, materials, and advanced manufacturing. Overall, the transaction will comprise a portfolio of more than 5,000 patents, including foundational patents in video codecs, such as HEVC and VVC, and audio compression technologies, such as a patent for audio-on-demand communication and telecommunication-related technologies.
“We are pleased with the progress we made in fiscal 2024,” says Kevin Yeaman, president and CEO of Dolby Laboratories. “As we enter 2025, we have strong momentum with Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, our imaging patent portfolio has got stronger with the GE Licensing acquisition, and we are excited about our opportunity with Dolby.io, which is well positioned to provide real time interactive experiences for sports and entertainment.”
The company’s licensing revenue, which makes up the bulk of its business, is expected to range from $305 million to $335 million in Q1 2025.
EVS BUYS MOG TECHNOLOGIES
EVS bought Portugal-based MOG Technologies to enhance its file-based ingest and transcoding capabilities for live and near-live production workflows. “With a team of 50 based in Porto, the acquisition grants EVS access to a pool of highly skilled talent,” says EVS.
MOG Technologies generates an annual revenueof approximately €4 million (about $4.1 million). EVS CEO Serge Van Herck points to MOG’s software-defined ingest capabilities and transcoding features for on-prem and cloud and how these fit with EVS’s Balanced Computing strategy, which is evident in products like MediaCeption.
Additionally, EVS spent €3 million (about $3.1 million) for a minority stake in TinkerList, a Belgian company aiming to make live broadcasting more intuitive, reliable, and productive. TinkerList ’s product Cuez is a web application and automation system that’s designed to connect with a variety of production devices.
Erik Hauters, CEO of TinkerList, comments, “We are happy to have the means and the support of EVS to achieve our vision, closing the gap between the writer’s room and the technical broadcasting environment. This investment will allow us to further extend the scope of our application to increase its relevance across a wider set of productions, while maintaining the same level of simplicity in usage. The strengthened partnership will help us to expand globally, thanks to EVS’s direct and indirect worldwide footprint. Moreover, this investment from a solid broadcast leader demonstrates the sustainability of our company.”
AKAMAI ACQUIRES EDGIO ASSETS
In September 2024, CDN provider Edgio filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In November, Akamai acquired select assets held by the company. Edgio listed $379 million in assets and $369 million in liabilities, according to court papers. At the time, its network comprised 300 points of presence (PoPs) worldwide, more than 7,000 ISP interconnections, and more than 275Tbps of global capacity, serving around 900 customers.
Akamai was the winning bidder of the assets, which included customer contracts from Edgio’s businesses in security and content delivery and non-exclusive license rights to Edgio’s entire patent portfolio. No assets related to the Edgio network were acquired by Akamai. Dan Rayburn noted in a December 2024 LinkedIn post that investment firm and Edgio debtor Lynrock won the assets for Uplynk and Interdigital, some of Edgio’s patents.
Edgio was only formed in 2022 after Limelight Networks acquired Edgecast from Yahoo and Apollo Global Management, with the combined company rebranding that year. Between 2013 and 2016, Edgecast was a subsidiary of Verizon. Verizon acquired Yahoo! in 2017 and merged it with its Verizon Digital Media Services business (including the CDN service) to form Oath and later Verizon Media.
In 2023, Lumen Technologies and StackPath quit the CDN business, selling their enterprise customers to Akamai.
AVID ENHANCES NEWS WITH WOLFTECH
Avid acquired Wolftech Broadcast Solutions, a developer of news planning, production, and publishing tools. Wolftech was founded in 2011 as a startup within TV 2 Norway, a broadcaster that has incubated companies such as Vizrt, Mosart Media Lab, Vimond, and Electric Friends. It started out working with live video production tools, then in 2013 was tasked by TV 2 to develop a better planning tool for news. The first version of Wolftech News launched in 2014, and its first customer was VRT in Belgium.
Avid expanded its news production portfolio with Wolftech Broadcast Solutions’ Wolftech LIVE.
Wolftech LIVE is the company’s web-based newsroom control system that allows broadcasters to build and broadcast news, sports, or entertainment shows. It is integrated into the Wolftech ecosystem and is designed to deliver a seamless transition from planning to production.
Other vendor partnerships with Wolftech include AWS, Adobe, LiveU, Vidispine, and Marquis. Avid has retained the Wolftech brand and will integrate the tools into Avid MediaCentral. Avid CEO Wellford Dillard says, “Wolftech is unquestionably on the leading edge of where the industry is going, and this acquisition demonstrates Avid’s commitment to transform news, sports, and live production workflows.”
ATELIERE ACQUIRES AGILE LIVE
Ateliere Creative Technologies, which describes itself as a generative AI media software solutions company, bought Agile Live, a live TV production platform from Spanish developer Agile Content. Agile Live is claimed to slash live production costs by up to 70% with technologies such as proxy video editing.
Rebranded Ateliere Live, the software platform enables production editing, mixing, graphics, and effects for REMI workflows. The company explains, “In an Ateliere Live production pipeline, video stays in the GPU until just prior to distribution, instead of being repeatedly encoded and decoded through a chain of video processing steps. This results in a substantially lower environmental footprint than traditional solutions that maintain the ‘serial processing steps’ architecture.”
Agile Live customers include Sveriges Television (SVT), whose head of production development, Dennis Buhr, says, “Our goal is to lower the technical and operational cost per produced hour to half or less of current levels, and we are excited about collaborating with Ateliere to further enhance the reach and capabilities of the system.”
Dan Goman, CEO and founder of Ateliere Creative Technologies, says, “With this acquisition, we are revolutionising the live production content industry to deliver enhanced real-time content directly to consumers.”
MEDIAGENIX BUYS SPIDEO METADATA
Mediagenix, which provides SaaS-based solutions for content strategy, content value management, and scheduling, acquired Spideo, a specialist in content recommendations. “The acquisition aligns with an acceleration in streaming and digital content consumption, whilst effectively tackling complex microsegmentation,” Mediagenix explains. It highlights the importance of metadata, and that a single “source of truth” for all content metadata “is rapidly becoming essential for media organisations to effectively monetise their catalog across platforms. …”
Spideo generates 2 billion recommendations from 120 million users a month. Integrating its technology into Mediagenix software is said to deliver improved semantic metadata enrichment, content discoverability, smart curation, and scheduling automation.
Fabrice Maquignon, CEO of Mediagenix, says, “Content discovery and personalisation are crucial to reducing churn, boosting engagement, and driving monetisation. … [I]ntegrating Spideo’s cutting-edge solutions … allows us to tap into new market segments and better support media companies in realising their strategic business goals.”
Spideo customers include Bouygues Telecom, Canal+, France Télévisions, Globo, Sky+, and Televisa. Mediagenix customers include AMC Networks, TelevisaUnivision, and A&E Networks.
Earlier in 2024, the Belgium-based Mediagenix expanded into the U.S. to tap demand for FAST and VOD ad solutions. It opened a U.S. headquarters in Miami and acquired (from an undisclosed source) a media program management tool widely used by broadcast networks and cable companies. As part of the transaction, Mediagenix acquired 55 new customers and 11 employees from the unnamed partner, which it described as the “market leader in broadcast inventory and revenue workflow management.” The newly acquired technology was created by Mediagenix and introduced into the U.S. market nearly 2 decades ago via that partner.
Emmanuel Müller, Mediagenix’s managing director for the Americas, says, “With this strategic acquisition and market expansion, Mediagenix plans to fill the growing void in the U.S. broadcast industry: true automation. The acquisition of this reference technology anchors our position as a leading provider of content strategy and scheduling solutions worldwide, allowing us to directly engage with broadcast and cable networks looking to expand and monetise offerings in FAST and VOD.”
ACCEDO BUYS EASEL TV
In March 2024, Swedish OTT solutions provider Accedo acquired Easel TV, a U.K.-based rival, to bring both companies’ SaaS platforms under one roof. Accedo CEO Michael Lantz says that Easel TV “has done a fantastic job in establishing themselves on the market,” adding, “We believe that we will be stronger together as we continue to innovate in this market.”
Swedish OTT solutions provider Accedo acquired U.K.-based SaaS platform Easel TV.
The Easel TV brand will be phased out. Easel TV clients include NBCUniversal, Sky, and TiVo. Accedo customers include Deutsche Telekom, ITV, Globo, Hallmark, Bloomberg, and Tata Play. Accedo recently launched a Quality as a Managed Service offering, allowing streaming companies to outsource quality assurance testing and app certification with original equipment manufacturers to achieve cost efficiency, improve QoS, and fight churn.
OUTBRAIN ACQUIRES TEADS FOR $1 BILLION
Outbrain, a company that uses AI to drive content recommendations and performance online, agreed to acquire Teads, an omnichannel video platform, from Altice in a $1 billion deal. Merging with Teads gives Outbrain access to TV and video publishers to tap into the growing CTV market. Teads provides publishers with a range of ad formats, most notably its outstream video, alongside creative optimisation and interactive features for CTV.
The combined company is expected to generate more than $1.7 billion in ad spend this year, with the transaction expected to close in Q1 2025, subject to stockholder and regulatory approvals. The two companies said the acquisition will create one of the largest advertising platforms for the open internet, mobile, and CTV, bringing together 20,000 direct advertisers with a base of 10,000 premium media environments. The combined platform will cover more than 50 markets, according to the firms, reaching more than 2 billion consumers per month. Outbrain CEO David Kostman will be CEO of the merged entity, with Teads co-CEOs Bertrand Quesada and Jeremy Arditi serving as co-presidents.
“This is a transformative transaction to establish a true end-to-end, full-funnel platform for the open internet,” says Kostman. “The combination of our highly complementary offerings accelerates our vision to become the preferred partner to deliver meaningful brand outcomes across premium, quality media environments—while scaling the industry-leading offerings Teads is known for.”
Altice had been looking to sell Teads for some time, after withdrawing its plans to take the company public in 2021. Altice was then expected to offload most of its media assets after accruing €60 billion (about $61.7 billion) in debt and facing a fraud investigation in Portugal.
In October 2023, reports said that Altice was seeking around €3 billion (about $3.1 billion) for Teads. But the $1 billion price tag still exceeds the $307 million Altice paid for Teads in 2017. According to Video Week, “[T]he acquisition represents an opportunity for Outbrain to expand into more premium environments, particularly CTV, seeking to work with more upper-funnel advertisers.”
The merger is subject to approval after a U.K. government investigation into whether the transaction will result “in a substantial lessening of competition” within the U.K. market.
WALMART + VIZIO = STREAMING AGGREGATOR
Walmart’s February 2024 $2.3 billion purchase of smart TV maker VIZIO and its SmartCast operating system was intended to create a more potent rival to Amazon’s booming ad business. Walmart’s ad sales are still a fraction of Amazon’s, but the bricks-and-mortar retail giant leads in daily grocery sales.
Walmart’s acquisition of VIZIO includes the SmartCast platform, which is on every VIZIO TV and has 18 million-plus active accounts.
Walmart’s ads business grew 28% to $3.4 billion last year, but this makes up less than 1% of its total sales. Variety even suggests that Walmart is perhaps the only player that can rival Amazon as the all-in-one dealer of the streaming market. “Walmart is well on the way to going toe-to-toe with Amazon as the ‘everything store’ of streaming,” writes Variety’s Tyler Aquilina, “with its own hardware, connected TV OS, subscription marketplace, and, if not its own proprietary SVOD, at least a high-profile partnership to offer one.”
SmartCast has more than 18 million active accounts and is included in every VIZIO TV set. It connects with other services like Apple Airplay and personal assistants like Alexa.
“Longer term, Walmart can also use the Vizio platform to develop more of its own entertainment content—something it might link with the Walmart+ membership scheme,” notes Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData. Walmart U.S. EVP and chief revenue officer Seth Dallaire says that combining VIZIO with its media business, Walmart Connect, “would be impactful as we redefine the intersection of retail and entertainment.”
SIMPLY TV ACQUIRES INFLOW MEDIA
Denmark’s Simply TV, a provider of content discovery and metadata, bought InFlow Media in July 2024, claiming to form Europe’s leading metadata company.
This is the second acquisition made by Simply TV, following the purchase of the Dutch metadata specialist GVIDI in 2022. InFlow Media, formed out of Universum Norway and Ritzau Mediaservice Denmark in 2019, develops EPG metadata and supports the transition to time-shift viewing, personal video recorders, and VOD in the Nordics. Simply TV was founded by Daniel Rühmann and Morten Trolle, who previously launched EPG Systems, which was acquired by Gracenote in 2013.
BENDING SPOONS BUYS BRIGHTCOVE
Brightcove, the Technology and Engineering Emmy-winning video platform vendor, was sold to app developer Bending Spoons for $233 million in November 2024. Founded in 2004 with a video player, Brightcove expanded into full online video services and a monetisation suite for clients such as the BBC, Showtime, AMC Networks, and the LPGA. It went public in 2012 but has faced challenges of late, reporting a net loss of $3 million for Q3 2024.
This was Milan-headquartered Bending Spoons’ sixth acquisition in 2024, following those of file-sharing platform WeTransfer, digital publishing platform Issuu, live-streaming app StreamYard, app maker Mosaic Group, and Meetup, a social network with 60 million members. In 2022, it acquired note-taking software firm Evernote. Bending Spoons is valued at more than $2.5 billion and is reportedly planning an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.
SEEDTAG ACQUIRES BEACHFRONT
Seedtag, a specialist in contextual advertising, acquired Beachfront, a U.S.-based sell-side ad platform for CTV and streaming. Since the announcement in June 2024, Beachfront’s technology, inventory, and expertise in CTV advertising has been incorporated into Seedtag’s contextual ad solutions. Seedtag recently launched Contextual TV in the U.S., an offering that harnesses AI-based network dynamics.
Jorge Poyatos, co-CEO and co-founder of Seedtag, says, “With the acquisition of Beachfront, we will further enrich our unique Contextual TV solution by incorporating a native platform into our stack, adding additional signals to our AI, and expanding our publisher partnerships.”
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When it comes to mergers and acquisitions in the streaming industry and M&E marketplace in 2023 and an accounting of the year's most consequential deals, it makes the most sense to open at the close: Disney's early-November announcement that it would fully subsume Hulu into its empire with a buyout that completed an acquisition initiated in pre-pandemic 2019.
04 Apr 2024