Walt Disney Co. is buying Maker Studios, the digital media company behind YouTube successes such as Epic Rap Battles of History and PewDiePie. Disney will pay $500 million to Maker shareholders. Maker Studios has about 55,000 YouTube channels with 380 million subscribers and 5.5 billion views per month.
Time Warner is leading a $40 million round of financing for Maker Studios, a startup that specializes in creating and distributing clips for YouTube.
