Rooster Teeth is back.
Almost exactly a year ago, the Austin-based media company–responsible for some of the internet’s earliest and most well-known digital video brands, plus major Western animes like RWBY and gen:LOCK–announced its closure after 21 years of operation.
“Since inheriting ownership and control of Rooster Teeth from AT&T following its acquisition of TimeWarner, Warner Bros. Discovery continued its investment in our company, content and community,” Rooster Teeth’s former General Manager, Jordan Levin, said at the time. “Now however, it’s with a heavy heart I announce that Rooster Teeth is shutting down due to challenges facing digital media resulting from fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and monetization across platforms, advertising, and patronage.”
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The closure laid off 150 staff plus dozens of contractors and freelancers, and put an end to a company that helped shape digital media, especially on YouTube.
But now, original co-founder Burnie Burns and his studio Box Canyon Productions have acquired the Rooster Teeth brand “and much of its remaining assets,” with plans to relaunch a new slate of programming this year.
This is the first time in over a decade that Rooster Teeth will be owned by its original creators. Prior to its closure, it underwent a tangled changing of hands: It was acquired by multichannel network Fullscreen in 2014. Fullscreen was then acquired by Otter Media–a joint venture between AT&T and The Chernin Group–in 2018. Later that same year, AT&T bought out Chernin’s stake in Otter and folded Rooster Teeth into WarnerMedia, which was spun off into its own entity in 2021 and then merged with Discovery in 2022, resulting in the creation of Rooster Teeth’s final corporate owner, Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.
“I am excited at the challenge of bringing Rooster Teeth back to its roots,” Burns said in a press release posted to Rooster Teeth’s website (under the company’s original logo.) “The heart of this brand has always been its fans, and I look forward to writing a new chapter together.”
He gave additional details in an episode of Morning Somewhere, the podcast he runs with his wife Ashley Burns, who founded Rooster Teeth’s news division The Know. So far, they are the only staffers on board for the revival, and he is also the only original co-founder (the others were Joel Heyman, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, and Gus Sorola) to return. In the episode, he asked that fans not question other co-founders about whether or not they’ll join the revamped venture.
The Rooster Teeth assets Burns has acquired include the brand itself, some of its owned YouTube channels, its social media accounts, and “some of [its] classic shows.”
However, he has not acquired rights to Rooster Teeth spinoffs like Achievement Hunter or FunHaus, nor to RWBY, which is owned by Viz Media. It’s not clear if Box Canyon Productions now owns gen:LOCK, or if it will revamp Rooster Teeth’s longtime annual convention, RTX.
“As an early pioneer of online video content, Rooster Teeth set the standard for how fan-first entertainment could thrive in the digital age,” Rooster Teeth said in a press release. “With Burns back at the helm, fans can anticipate a renewed dedication to Rooster Teeth’s original mission: to entertain, inspire, and connect.”
