Omnia Media Acquires Comedy Video and Podcast Startup Wisecrack (EXCLUSIVE)
By Janko Roettgers
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Blue Ant Media subsidiary Omnia Media has acquired Wisecrack, the digital video and podcasting company behind such shows as “Thug Notes,” and “The Philosophy of Everything,” as well as the “Rick and Morty” podcast “The Squanch.”
Wisecrack will continue to operate as its own brand following the transaction, which has all of the company’s staff joining Omnia Media. Financial details of the transaction weren’t disclosed by the 2 companies.
Wisecrack has amassed over 500 million video views since its launch in 2014; the company has some 4 million subscribers and listeners for its shows and podcasts. Wisecrack CEO Jacob Salamon told Variety during an interview last week that the acquisition would allow his team to more easily expand to other platforms. “We were exclusively a YouTube channel,” he said of Wisecrack’s video efforts.
With Omnia Media’s help, Wisecrack is now looking at launching shows on Snapchat and other platforms — something that simply wasn’t in the cards before. “It’s night and day,” Salamon said about the effects of the acquisition.
Omnia Media generates some 2 billion video views per month across its portfolio, which include the popular animated video brand “Arcade Cloud” and other gamer-centric channels. Omnia Media general manager Greg Kampanis said that his company used to primarily focus on YouTube as well. These days, it also distributes videos via Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and smart TVs. “Gaming content travels well,” he said.
That diversification not only helped the company to grow its revenue, as well as its production budgets. It also secured Omnia’s business against some of the pressure other media brands have been facing, Kampanis argued. “We don’t need to be quite as worried about the algorithm on any one platform.”
Speaking of business models: One of the reasons that Omnia Media acquired Wisecrack was that the latter had been operating in the black, according to Kampanis. “Our model is to run these brands profitably.”
