iWorld
Prime Video debuts its first dedicated anime channel – Anime Times
Mumbai: Prime Video, India’s most loved entertainment destination, today announced the launch of its first dedicated anime Channel, Anime Times on Prime Video Channels. Anime Times will premiere exclusively on Prime Video Channels in India. A premier streaming service focused on Japanese animation, Anime Times has been available on Prime Video Channels in Japan, and is now debuting into India with its wide array of the latest anime movies and TV shows, along with much-loved classics, on Prime Video Channels. Prime members can purchase an add-on subscription to Anime Times at an annual fee of Rs 899.
With a subscription to Anime Times on Prime Video Channels, Prime members in India can enjoy highly popular titles such as SPY×FAMILY, HUNTER x HUNTER, Fairy Tale Movie Houou No Miko, Tokyo Revengers, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Mob Psycho 100, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Goblin Slayer, Zombieland Saga, and more.
“At Prime Video, we are steadfast in our efforts to bring diverse, engaging and distinctive content across languages, genres, and formats, for our customers underscoring our content philosophy to offer something for everyone,” said Prime Video, India head – Prime Video Channels Vivek Srivastava. “Over the past few years, anime content has gained significant fandom in India. With the launch of Anime Times on Prime Video Channels, we are expanding our anime programming with over hundreds of hours of programming and bringing highly engaging movies and TV shows for Prime Members. Anime Times will be available for the first time in India only on Prime Video Channels. With this launch Prime Video Channels will become the ‘one-stop entertainment destination’ for all Anime fans in the country. Anime Times has been a premier destination for some of the best Anime content, as a Channel on Prime Video in Japan, and we are thrilled to be the launchpad for them in India, and offer them wide reach to customers across the country.”
Anime Times Company CEO Hideo Katsumata said, “Anime Times and Prime Video have enjoyed a strong collaboration in Japan, and we are now excited to bring Anime Times for the very first time to audiences in India. Japanese anime culture is now a significant global phenomenon, and has led to an increasing interest in Japanese culture and entertainment. We are certain that with Anime Times, fans and enthusiasts all across the country will be able to delve into the huge pool of anime shows and movies, both recent and classic, that we offer via Prime Video Channels.”
Prime members can purchase an add-on subscription to Anime Times at Rs 899 annually.
Prime Video Channels benefits for Prime members include:
- No hassle login & billing: Customers do not have to juggle between multiple usernames, passwords and billing due dates. With Prime Video Channels, all premium content subscriptions are managed within a single destination – Prime Video apps and website.
- More time watching, less time deciding: Customers don’t have to spend time toggling between their favourite services to discover what’s new and popular. With Prime Video Channels they can browse in one place, search across all their premium subscription and get personalized recommendations. All of this without ever having to leave the Prime Video app or website.
- Enjoy your favourite features, no matter which service: Customers can enjoy IMDb’s X-Ray feature and a single consolidated watch list and download library for offline viewing. Subscribers can also manage data consumption and much more across all their premium channel subscriptions.
- More Choice: With Prime Video Channels, Prime members can access thousands of additional titles across 23 OTT services, including Anime Times, FanCode, BBC Player, BBC Kids, Animax + GEM, Lionsgate Play, discovery+, Eros Now, DocuBay, ManoramaMAX, hoichoi, MUBI, AMC+, ShortsTV, VROTT, Acorn TV, NammaFlix, Stingray All Good Vibes, iwonder, Curiosity Stream, Chaupal, MyZen TV, and Museum TV.
iWorld
Bill Ackman makes a $64bn bid for Universal Music Group
The hedge fund boss wants to list the world’s biggest record label in New York and thinks he knows exactly what ails it
NEW YORK: Bill Ackman wants to buy the world’s biggest record label. Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund run by the billionaire investor, submitted a non-binding proposal on Tuesday to acquire all outstanding shares of Universal Music Group in a business combination transaction worth roughly $64.4 billion (around 55.8 billion euros).
Under the terms of the offer, UMG shareholders would receive 9.4 billion euros in cash, equivalent to 5.05 euros per share, plus 0.77 shares of a newly created company, dubbed New UMG, for each share held. Pershing Square values the total package at 30.40 euros per share, a 78 per cent premium to UMG’s closing price on April 2.
The deal would see UMG merge with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, with the combined entity incorporating as a Nevada corporation and listing on the New York Stock Exchange. New UMG would publish financial statements under US GAAP and become eligible for S&P 500 index inclusion. Pershing Square says the transaction is expected to close by year-end, with all equity financing backstopped by Ackman’s firm and its affiliates, and all debt financing committed at signing. The transaction would cancel 17 per cent of UMG’s outstanding shares, leaving New UMG with 1.541 billion shares outstanding.
Ackman has a long history with UMG. Pershing Square first bought approximately 10 per cent of the company from Vivendi in the summer of 2021 for around $4 billion, around the time of UMG’s listing on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange. He has since trimmed that position, raising around $1.4 billion from the sale of a 2.7 per cent stake in March 2025, and resigned from UMG’s board in May 2025, citing new executive and board obligations arising from recent investments.
His diagnosis of UMG’s troubles is blunt. The company’s stock has fallen around 33 per cent over the past twelve months on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange, and Ackman lays out six reasons why. These include uncertainty around the Bolloré Group’s 18 per cent stake in the company, the postponement of UMG’s US listing, the underutilisation of UMG’s balance sheet, the absence of a publicly disclosed capital allocation plan and earnings algorithm, a failure to reflect UMG’s 2.7 billion euro stake in Spotify in its valuation, and what Ackman calls suboptimal shareholder investor relations, communications and engagement.
The Bolloré stake has long cast a shadow over the company. Cyrille Bolloré stepped down from UMG’s board in July 2025 as the Bolloré Group battled the French financial markets regulator over its stake in Vivendi, which holds a further capital interest in UMG. UMG had confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2025 for a proposed secondary listing in America, but put those plans on hold in March 2026, citing market conditions.
Ackman has kind words for UMG’s management, at least. “Since UMG’s listing, Lucian Grainge and the company’s management have done an excellent job nurturing and continuing to build a world-class artist roster and generating strong business performance,” he said. But he made his diagnosis plain: “UMG’s stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.”
In other words, Ackman believes UMG is a great business trapped inside a broken structure. If the board agrees, he intends to fix that, loudly and in New York.
