Viacom buys Brazilian prodco

Viacom International Media Networks has acquired control of a Brazilian short-form comedy producer.

The acquisition of Porta dos Fundos, financial terms of which were not disclosed, will allow Viacom’s international arm to expand in Latin America and its own content pipeline.

The deal comes soon after Viacom bought Argentinian commercial channel Telefe.

Porta dos Fundos is known as a comedy sketch producer and Portuguese-language YouTube channel operator with more than 13 million subscribers. It has a library of clips, several TV series, mobile apps and games, and a consumer products line.

Fabio Porchat, Antonio Tabet, João Vicente de Castro, Ian SBF and Gregorio Duvivier launched the firm in 2012, and have gone on to make the Porta dos Fundos YouTube channel a global top-ten entertainment network on the platform in terms of subs.

Online video tech firm Zefr recently ranked Porta dos Fundos as the world’s most influential YouTube channel.

“As we continue to build scale in the Latin American region, our investment in Porta dos Fundos furthers our commitment to the Brazilian market and increases our ability to create innovative content, often native to digital platforms, which will complement our existing Viacom brands and capabilities,” said Pierluigi Gazzolo, president of VIMN Americas (pictured).

Porta dos Fundos CEO Tereza Gonzalez said selling to VIMN was “a big step for the group towards expanding into the international market, with new global opportunities for our portfolio both on and offline” and gave the firm an “exceptional distribution channels for our content”.

Viacom currently distributes Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., VH1 and Paramount Channel via Brazilian pay TV providers, and has had an office in São Paulo since 1998.

Though the size of its stake in Porta dos Funtos was not specified, Viacom has on option to buy more of the business in the future.