The Walt Disney Co. has agreed to buy Maker Studios, one of You Tube’s largest networks, for $500 million, a deal that makes Disney a major online video distributor and should help draw more teens into the Disney entertainment empire.

The price tag could rise to $950 million if Maker hits certain performance milestones, Disney said.

Maker, founded in 2009, is one of the largest video production networks on Google Inc.’s You Tube. It targets the younger millennial generation, with its high appetite for online video.

“This gives us a lot of data to help promote our other businesses to them,” said Kevin Mayer, Disney executive vice president for corporate strategy.

The deal will be ‘mildly dilutive’ to earnings per share up to fiscal 2017, Mayer said. Disney’s fiscal year closes in September.

Maker helps produce and distribute videos to more than 380 million subscribers worldwide across more than 55,000 channels. Its videos now collectively garner some 5.5 billion views every month, according to the source.

The company, whose backers include Time Warner Investments, Upfront Ventures and Greycroft Partners, is partners with PewDiePie, the online persona of 24-year-old video gamer Felix Kjellberg. Kjellberg has more than 25 million subscribers and is You Tube’s single most-subscribed star.

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