GoTV Sold to Texas Mobile Entertainment Company

Mobile entertainment distributor GoTV Networks has been acquired by a Texas mobile experience company. Terms between Sherman Oaks-based GoTV and Phunware, of Austin, were not disclosed. “Through this acquisition, we have accelerated our operational growth, strengthened our financial position and achieved critical mass on a global scale, including an array of customers and brands unparalleled in the industry,” said Phunware Chairman and CEO Alan Knitowski. GoTV started in 2003 as a content creator for mobile devices and then later transitioned into a distributor and marketing partner. GoTV has worked with brands including the NFL, ESPN, Univision, and Oprah Winfrey’s OWN. In a November 2010 interview with the Business Journal, then-CEO Thomas Ellsworth said he expected GoTV to be acquired by a larger company. “I think it is inevitable,” Ellsworth said in the interview. “The investors, the venture capitalists who have put money in here, they look for an exit. The natural exit is that GoTV ends up inside a media company or large ad agency, doing what we do for all their content and all of their accounts.”