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Candle Media Faces Uncertain Future After Hello Sunshine Exit
Confirmed
In Short: Candle Media, a five-year-old media firm, is facing new questions about its future after selling its majority stake in Hello Sunshine, a move that has raised concerns about its valuation and profitability.
The firm paid nearly $3 billion to acquire Hello Sunshine in 2021, a deal that now seems overvalued given the company's output and lack of profitability.
According to Deadline, the sale of Hello Sunshine is likely a loss of several hundred million dollars for Candle Media.
Candle Media's aggressive acquisition strategy, which included buying assets and operating them, has shifted to a more cautious approach.
The company has cut staff and restructured, folding its animation division into Moonbug, a kids entertainment powerhouse.
Industry observers wonder if Candle Media's next move will be to acquire Moonbug, its main remaining asset.
Candle Media's CEO, Barry Diller, had envisioned the company as a modernly configured media company with a focus on great storytelling.
However, the financial landscape has changed dramatically, with the rate-driven increase in borrowing costs squeezing many firms like Candle Media.
The company's restructuring and the sale of Hello Sunshine have left industry watchers questioning its future direction.
Despite these challenges, Candle Media's Moonbug subsidiary remains a significant player in the kids entertainment market, with its CoComelon series being Netflix's most popular title from 2021 to 2024.
Moonbug's YouTube channel garners 13 billion views a month, more than all of Disney's channels combined.
The company's restructuring and the sale of Hello Sunshine have raised questions about its ability to maintain its position in the media landscape.
Candle Media declined to comment when contacted by Deadline.
What this adds
The financial details of the Hello Sunshine deal have not been disclosed, but industry insiders suggest it represents a significant loss for Candle Media.
What's confirmed
- Marine One's door remained shut for some time, according to the White House press pool, causing questions about whether the unexpected slide safety check disrupted the president's travel plans.
What's still developing
- Los Angeles Lakers GM Rob Pelinka has been answering questions on LeBron James’ exit.
- The star has told fans she may not tour again for a "long, long" time Ariana Grande made an emotional exit on Tuesday night, as she wrapped up her Eternal Sunshine tour, and prepared to step back from public life.
- The Eternal Sunshine tour marked Grande's return to the stage after a seven-year absence Even before that announcement, Grande had described the Eternal Sunshine tour - which started in the US in June - as "one last hurrah", saying she wanted to take more acting roles after her Oscar-nominated performance in Wicked.
- "There's no question about it - Ariana Grande is one of the best singers of her generation," wrote Rolling Stone magazine, external, noting that "there were no signs" of the singer "struggling or not wanting to be there".
- President Donald Trump comments on the inspection of an emergency slide aboard Air Force One after arriving at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on ‘America Reports.’ An emergency slide deployment on the Qatari-gifted Air Force One raised questions at Joint Base Andrews (JBA) on Wednesday before President Donald Trump revealed it was all part of a safety check.
- "Air Force One is on its way to Dallas so he can deliver his much-anticipated speech to a raucous and sold-out crowd."
- "So they’ve, I guess, already put it up. They want to make sure everything works perfectly."
- "They were checking it before, and they just wanted to make sure," Trump told reporters on the tarmac after exiting Marine One.
- "As the President has said, the slide was checked out to make sure everything works perfectly," Cheung told Fox News.
- “We did move aggressively,” Mayer said of Candle during an appearance on a Deadline-moderated panel at last month’s Zurich Summit.
- The financials around the deal for Reese Witherspoon’s company, which she is buying back from Candle in partnership with France-based Mediawan, have not been disclosed.
- But one veteran financier familiar with the transaction told Deadline it likely represents a loss of several hundreds of millions of dollars for Candle.