ADV Sells itself to Sony

outlawed · Post by **outlawed** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:13 am

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Houston,Texas) - A.D. Vision, Inc announced today plans to sell off their firm to media giant Sony for $500 million dollars. The deal gives Sony access to the ADV Films library of video and DVD titles, Newtype USA magazine, ADV Manga, the Anime Network, and ADV Toys. CEO and co-founder John Ledford states, "The timing was right for this. We have become the number one distributor of anime goods in North America but expansion beyond this point has proven difficult, especially getting penetration into non-Video on Demand cable service. Sony has plans to roll out their Animax channel in the 3rd quarter. Management was unanimous in our vote to make Sony an offer. The risk of going head to head against Sony wasn't worth it. Our company is at its highest point in terms of capital and assets while the anime market is no longer growing in size. This is simply the right move at the right time. We are thrilled that Sony saw the value in our offer and accepted. I'll look forward to seeing some of the product we produced when it gets broadcast on Animax late this Fall."

Many anime fans have been quick to comment on this shakeup in the anime market. One poster at popular anime news site http://www.animeondvd.com made the following post: "I just knew it. Everyone who didn't believe there was something up with the layoff of Monster Island is now in for a rude shock. ADV has sold us out." The cause for concern amongst the majority of fans seems to be with the plans Sony has for North American DVD production. An anonymous industry insider states, "The fans don't realize how good they had it with ADV. Sony is not going to release DVD's with the original Japanese audio and a subtitle track. They're going to dub it, air it on TV, and then sell the popular shows with no extras. Titles that do not perform well during broadcast will likely never see a home release and if they do it will be of such marginal quality the fans are going to be upset."

MistyCaldwell · Post by **MistyCaldwell** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 7:45 am

Interesting. Did you write all of this yourself or is there an anime fool's site everyone is getting stuff off of today?

Brsrk · Post by **Brsrk** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 12:27 pm

Or perhaps the random sites are posting their own content and people are just now finding out about it...

Bulghod · Post by **Bulghod** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 12:37 pm

Makes sense. the company seemed to be kinda crunching down upon itself.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:21 pm

I'd like to wait and see what that actually means. I wouldn't neccesarily be too skeptical and consider it "the end of subs" or whatever; I'm sure Sony knows better than that.

If this means more anime on TV, perhaps it's not a bad thing at all.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:31 pm

Wait, wait, wait, is that another April 1st thing? I've fallen for several today already

greenjinjo · Post by **greenjinjo** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:14 pm

Hah hah, April Fools.

MistyCaldwell · Post by **MistyCaldwell** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:00 pm

My post blowing his cover must be invisible. That means this is invisble! Time to spew obscenities.

Tono_Fyr · Post by **Tono_Fyr** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:24 pm

I hate April fools, always such stupid things going on. Why won't anyone get over it and just stop? This started for me over a month ago with that damn Zelda article in EGM.

bum · Post by **bum** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:57 pm

Tono_Fyr wrote:I hate April fools, always such stupid things going on. Why won't anyone get over it and just stop? This started for me over a month ago with that damn Zelda article in EGM.

Ah, relax and play along with it. People are always going to do it. Theirs nothing you can realy do to stop it. If ya cant beat them.........................