01 Jul Oaktree Capital Buys FilmRise, Merges It With Shout! Studios In New Radial Entertainment [Deadline]
BY JILL GOLDSMITH
July 1, 2025 | Los Angeles-based health Oaktree Capital Management is following its 2023 acquisition of Shout! Studios with a deal for FilmRise, a leading indie distributor of digital streaming content.
Shout! recently acquired Gravitas Ventures. Oaktree, which is on the way to amassing one of the largest independent library catalogs in the industry with about 70,000 movies and episodes, will fold its growing media footprint into a new holding company called Radial Entertainment. Garson Foos, CEO and co-founder of Shout! Studios, will become CEO of Radial Entertainment and Danny Fisher, CEO and co-founder of FilmRise, will become Executive Chairman.
Jared Frandle, Managing Director for Oaktree’s Special Situations strategy, tells Deadline the firm will continue to invest across M&A, content partnerships and expansion of digital streaming channels. The three executives called the merger of FilmRise and Shout! strong on industrial logic with unique and complementary capabilities, assets, and expertise “that interlock to create a complete, end-to-end production, distribution, and streaming business.”
Fisher and his brother founded FilmRise in the kitchen of his Brooklyn home in 2009 out of the ashes of their previous venture, City Lights Media, which went belly up during the financial crisis. It’s since grown into a digital streaming presence, including as an early content provider to Roku starting in 2017. It currently streams over 600 FAST channels and AVOD streaming apps across most third-party platforms.
Founded in 2012 by producers/ financiers Danny Fisher, Jack Fisher and Alan Klingenstein, it offers thousands of licensed and originally produced scripted and unscripted feature films and television episodes across genres. It made a name acquiring popular content that flew under the radar, like Forensic Files and Unsolved Mysteries, but its catalog spans true crime, reality, classics, medical, food, and UK genres. Co-productions include true crime series Bloodline Detectives Hosted by Nancy Grace, currently on season 5.