Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has acquired Turkish streamer BluTV.
The U.S. media giant already had a 35% stake in the eight-year-old streamer along with content deals in place, and has upped stake to 100%. Today’s news builds on WBD boss David Zaslav’s declaration during the company’s Q3 results call that it would be allocating capital towards growth initiatives around the world.
BluTV launched in 2016 in Turkey, expanded to MENA in 2018 and in 2021 partnered with Discovery+ as Discovery (prior to the WBD merger) took a 35% stake. That partnership deepened earlier this year when HBO content such as Game of Thrones and The Last Of Us, and kids channels Cartoon Network and Cartoonito were added to BluTV.
Jamie Cooke, WBD’s General Manager overseeing Turkey, the Middle East and CEE, said Turkey had “been an important investment territory for us for over 20 years.”
“The acquisition of BluTV brings Turkey’s first local SVoD player into our portfolio,” he added. “The combination of compelling Turkish content and a broad range of the best international series and shows from WBD is an unbeatable recipe to be locally relevant and successful.”
BluTV CEO Denis Şaşmaz Oflaz added: “As Turkey’s leading local subscription video platform, we are proud that our steady growth since day one has made us a part of one of the largest media companies in the world.”
The acquisition coming in the quiet post-Christmas week could mark the start of an extremely busy year for WBD. Just prior to Christmas, a bombshell meeting between Zaslav and Paramount Global boss Bob Bakish was reported and could be a precursor to a merger between the two giants, while the company is still making strategic changes due to the Warner merger.