In a very quiet move, Sony has sold its minority share of Crackle to Chicken Soup for the Soul giving the company full control of the service. Sony turned over control of the company which still had a minority share of for preferred stock with the company.
Crackle has long been a part of Chicken Soup for the Soul’s streaming strategy. It was part of a portfolio called Crackle plus which includes a number of other ad-supported and premium channels including Popcorn Flix.
The move has been in the works since the original sale of the free streamer set up a deadline whereby Sony would decide by November 14, 2020 whether to convert its current ownership of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment’s Crackle Plus subsidiary into 49% of the common ownership of Crackle Plus or into $40 million of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment’s preferred shares.
The move sets up Sony to focus on the Anime space where it has been gathering assets in space over the past few years. Its latest acquisition of Crunchyroll allowed it to solidify its hold on the US market for the art form which is growing swiftly worldwide.
