Viacom on Friday announced plans to acquire youth-focused media company AwesomenessTV.
The deal, however, was reported to be significantly below prior valuations attached to Awesomeness.
Awesomeness, which began as a YouTube channel and expanded into additional channels and original programming distribution, was acquired by DreamWorks Animation — a subsidiary of Comcast’s NBCUniversal — in 2013 for a reported $117 million.
DreamWorks then sold 25 percent stakes to Verizon and Hearst in 2016, when the company was valued at some $650 million.
Financial terms of the Viacom transaction were not disclosed, but The Hollywood Reporter put the price tag at $25 million plus debt.
Viacom officials, which include several Awesomeness alumni, touted the company’s connection to “Gen Z — that coveted up-and-coming cohort born along with the tech revolution of the mid-1990s.”
“Awesomeness has done an incredible job building their brand into a digital media powerhouse for today’s most sought-after and hard-to-reach youth audiences,” said Kelly Day, former chief business officer at Awesomeness and the current president of Viacom Digital Studios, which will house the Awesomeness operations.