According to a post on xBiz.com tonight, two of the largest adult companies in the world, are planning to merger.
Manwin who owns and operates many popular adult sites, including Youporn.com, filed a merger notification with Austria’s Federal Competition Authority, an agency that probes mergers and acquisitions to merge with Miami-based RK Netmedia Inc.
RK Netmedia, Inc most well known adult brand is Reality Kings.
Manwin is the company which is currently suing ICM the operator of the .XXX registry for antitrust violations.
“The merger notification between Manwin and RK Netmedia was made April 16.”
“Every entrepreneur, whose legal or economic interests may be affected by the merger, may within 14 days (April 30) from the date of the notice … submit a written statement,” the authority said.
“The agency plans to end its investigation of Manwin’s planned Reality Kings acquisition on May 14.”
I read about the announcement on GFY (Go Fuck Yourself) boards. These are two of the largest porn networks on the net. Since it is a merger and not an acquisition, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will they become a huge conglomerate or continue to operate the Brazzers and Reality Kings network of sites independent of each other?
In response to your post on December 2, I argued that Manwin controls 80% of online, adult traffic. When I made that claim, I was already factoring RK into Manwin’s total Holdings, because the adult industry has known about this deal for ages. Obviously, however, this is news to you. Anyway, back on Dec. 2nd, when I made my claims about Manwin, you argued that, if my claims were true, DOJ or EU action would be taken against Manwin for monopoly/anti-trust issues. Yet, in this post, you don’t even hint at any type of illegality. Have you changed your position?
that’s big time
Ann
No i haven’t changed my opinion on that issue, its just not relevant to this story
“Porn monopoly anti-trust issue” LOL good one, such idea is stupid on so many levels I would not even know where to start…
Michael doesn’t believe it is stupid at all. Moreover, I don’t see how it is irrelevant. If you believed that Manwin was too big before, and you just found out that it just got even bigger, then you must certainly think that your position is even truer today.
PS For well over a year, the adult industry has been operating on the assumption that Manwin owns AVN, although there has been no official announcement. So, get ready to report on that “breaking news.”
Ann
Well since your asking, yes I did think the Manwin suit against ICM was crap and is crappier today.
Manwin has a bigger market presence in adult and is much closer to a monopoly in the adult space than ICM and that market influence/market share increases with ever new acquisition, making Manwin argument against ICM weaker.
I also expect to see that Manwin filed an application to run one or more adult themed new gTLD’s like .Sex when ICANN releases the list of applicants and applications in May.
@Ann
Why do you insist not to understand that the rules of the game have changed and the world is changing. Manwin WAS big before the .xxx came into existence. Everyday the .xxx gets bigger and highly positioned. Manwin has lost the game when they could not get the .xxx. Even if they were able to get .sex, the .sex to the .xxx will be like the .info to the .com.
How can you say that .xxx is getting bigger and highly positioned? It’s over, while the launch must have been profitable for ICM, the TLD itself is a total failure. There is hardly any content on .xxx sites and the biggest players int eh adult industry have turned their backs on the TLD. .XXX is old news and getting older.