Bill Rouhana, CEO Of Crackle Parent Chicken Soup For The Soul, On Netflix And Disney+ Ad Tiers, How Roku “Missed The Point” And Why His Acquisition Of Redbox “Scared The Daylights Out Of Wall Street”
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Bill Rouhana, CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, will wait as long as it takes — years even — for the right M&A transaction to come together.
Two elements must fall into place, in his words: “industrial logic” and “financial excellence.” As a result of that approach, which runs counter to the kind of swashbuckling that has made (or more often lost) fortunes in the media business, Rouhana is also used to being second-guessed.
Patient and painstaking dealmaking has defined the streaming company since before its initial public offering in 2017. By gradually adding Crackle, Screen Media, 1091 Pictures, Sonar Entertainment and other assets to the portfolio, through a series of deals engineered to involve little in the way of up-front cost cash payment, CSSE has steadily become the largest player in ad-supported streaming that is not owned by a major tech or media entity.
Now, though, comes perhaps the biggest round of second-guessing to face the company: In August, it closed a $375 million deal to acquire Redbox, the firm known for its bright red, disc-dispensing kiosks.
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