News / TV

Chicken Soup For The Soul acquires Crackle from Sony

This is not an April Fool’s joke.

Chicken Soup For The Soul Entertainment, a streaming service in its own right, is taking on Sony’s assets from its streaming service, Crackle, and creating a joint venture called, well, Crackle Plus.

OK. It still sounds like a prank. But it’s not.

“Crackle is a valuable asset and we feel confident it will thrive and grow in this new environment with CSS (Chicken Soup for the Soul) Entertainment,” said Sony Pictures Television Chairman Mike Hopkins. “We were drawn to CSS Entertainment as our partner in this venture because of its aggressive, entrepreneurial approach. The CSS Entertainment team have the enthusiasm and strong business acumen to ensure Crackle Plus is poised to maximize the growing opportunities in the AVOD marketplace.”

Crackle enjoyed a brief time in the limelight when Jerry Seinfeld debuted his webseries, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and David Spade made and released his Joe Dirt sequel there.

But Seinfeld took his webseries to Netflix eventually, and whatever TV and movie library Sony possessed wasn’t talked about so much any longer.

CSS Entertainment, meanwhile, touted the new Crackle Plus with these press release stats and quote…

Strategic Highlights of Crackle Plus

  • Creates one of the largest AVOD platforms in the U.S. with a combined audience of nearly 10 million monthly active users on its owned-and-operated networks, as well as millions of additional users from its ad rep business
  • Over 26 million registered users
  • Over 38,000 combined hours of programming including access to library assets from the joint venture partners
  • Currently streams more than 1.3 billion minutes per month
  • Over 90 content partnerships
  • Includes 100-plus VOD networks

William J. Rouhana, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer: “Our joint venture will position Crackle Plus as a leading AVOD streaming platform with nearly 10 million active users on our owned-and-operated networks. This will result in a manyfold increase in our recurring revenue from online networks. We plan to build Crackle Plus aggressively and profitably through organic growth and acquisitions.”

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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