Anthem Media CEO Leonard Asper Says They Have No Plans of Stopping After AXS TV Purchase, on How AXS Sale Came Together

– Multichannel News recently interviewed Anthem Media CEO and Founder Leonard Asper, who discussed the recent acquisition of a majority stake in AXS TV buy Anthem. Below are some highlights.

Leonard Asper on how this acquisition is just a start: “By no means do we want to stop here. I don’t think we have enough scale. This is a good start, but yes, we are looking for other opportunities.”

Asper on wanting to grow Anthem’s content: “We want to grow with as much proprietary content as we can. 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.”

On how Anthem has been looking for acquisitions: “We’ve been looking for an acquisition for some time to grow and get scale, and do what everybody else in the media business is doing. We looked for things that serve passionate communities, can transform to digital media companies and have no geographical limitations on them.”

Asper on connecting with AXS: “We were talking about a content relationship with them based on some of the other things we do — wrestling and e-sports and fantasy sports — and that led to this deal. hThere was no investment bank hired or a process at all. This was a discussion that came out of a relationship we were developing with them.”