Crackle (service)
Crackle, formerly named Grouper and Sony Crackle, is an American video streaming service founded in 2004. The service was purchased by Sony Pictures in 2006 and was renamed as Crackle. In 2018, the name was changed to Sony Crackle.[1] Sony sold a majority stake to Chicken Soup for the Soul in March 2019, and the name was changed back to Crackle.[2][3]
Formerly
Grouper (2004–2007)
Sony Crackle (2018–2019)
2004 (as Grouper)
May 4, 2007 (as Crackle)
Josh Felser
Dave Samuel
Mike Sitrin
Aviv Eyal
40 million monthly active users (as of January 1, 2022)
Availability[edit]
While it was Sony Crackle, it was available in 21 countries and in three languages: English, Portuguese, and Spanish.[30][16] Currently, Crackle is only available in the US. Crackle was launched in Canada in September 2010.[31][32] In late 2015, several of the service's original series were made available only through the local services Crave TV and Shomi.[33][34] Following the closure of Shomi in the fall of 2016, new productions continued to be released exclusively on Crave TV, as well as Amazon Prime Video and Super Channel (Canada).[35][36][37]
Crackle's Canadian operations were shut down on June 28, 2018, and its content was moved to Bell Media's CTV Movies and CTV Throwback services.[6] Despite Crackle being a Sony owned service, the successor CTV app has not launched on Sony's PlayStation or Smart TV platforms, although it has become available on Microsoft's Xbox One console and Samsung's Smart TVs.
As of late 2016, Crackle in Latin America was only available as an ad-free paid service.[29][38] Subscribers were required to have a pay-TV service provider that had partnered with Sony Crackle in order to access the service.[39] Crackle was discontinued in Latin America on April 30, 2019.[40]