By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Anthem Founder and CEO Leonard Asper spoke with MultiChannel News about the acquisition of majority interest in AXS TV and said the network will remain largely the same. ““There are some complementary content opportunities but AXS will remain AXS as people know it,” Asper said. “We believe there is a lot of content out there that can find a home on AXS, but it has a great brand and we want to keep it as is. We are effectively entering the music/video space, not trying to transform AXS into something we already have. This is an add-on for us.”
Asper also indicated that the company isn’t finished making acquisitions and spoke of owning Impact Wrestling. “We want to grow with as much proprietary content as we can,” he said. “That’s a very important part of our growth plan, owning content. We believe owning the content and putting it on our channels, but also having it on other people’s platforms as well. I call that untethered vertical integration.” Read the full story at Multichannel.com.
Powell’s POV: In a perfect world, one would think that Anthem would prefer to get a big programming rights deal from another network for Impact since that seems to be the more lucrative approach. That said, Impact seems to be in a great position in terms of an Anthem owned AXS providing them with network stability. Impact has yet to officially announce a move to AXS, but it’s surely in the works and I’m curious to see if the move will coincide with a night and time slot change.
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