Disney Acquires YouTube Content Producer Maker Studios To Reach More Millennials

Disney has been on a buying spree over the last year or so. The major purchase for Disney was buying George Lucas' Lucasfilm and announcing that new Star Wars films were coming to theaters. Disney has announced another purchase this week that nets it one of the largest production studios making video for YouTube.

Disney has purchased Maker Studios in a deal said to be worth $500 million. The purchase gives Disney an in with YouTube and the massive streaming video audience composed of teens and other age groups that Disney covets. If maker Studios hits certain performance milestones, the deal could be worth much more.

A source claims that if these unspecified performance metrics are hit, the purchase price could balloon to $950 million. Maker Studios creates content that targets the millennial generation. Disney says that the deal will be "mildly dilutive" to its earnings per share through fiscal 2017.

Maker Studios currently has 380 million subscribers globally across 55,000 channels. The videos that Maker produces grab 5.5 billion views in total each month. Disney expects to close the deal in Q3 2014.

SOURCE: Reuters