Sony Pictures Television is poised to bring Crackle - its free streaming entertainment network which is ad-supported - to cable company Comcast's service Xfinity on Demand.
Come Wednesday, April 20, the biggest cable operator in the U.S. will be launching Crackle. The content deal with a cable distribution partner is a first for the Sony Pictures Television-owned digital channel, which launched in 2007.
Crackle is also available on several other platforms such as the Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, PlayStation consoles, Google Chromecast, Roku, and Xbox to name a few.
"Our deal with Comcast expands the reach of our content to new audiences across Xfinity On Demand platforms. Now, millions of viewers will be able to access Crackle's original programming on demand, without having to leave their set-top box environment," noted Eric Berger, Crackle's General Manager.
Thanks to the deal, several original content from Crackle such as scripted drama The Art of More, the animated series SuperMansion and Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee will become accessible to subscribers of the Xfinity On Demand platform.
Original programming such as Crackle's feature-length movie Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser and Sports Jeopardy! with Dan Patrick will also be available for all Xfinity TV subscribers.
Comcast views the deal as an opportunity to get new programming content on board its platforms. Comcast Cable's Vice President of content acquisition, Franz Kurath, let on that Crackle's constantly increasing original content portfolio was of high quality and, therefore, thanks to its uniqueness a "valuable addition" to the platform.
On the first week of Crackle's roll out for Comcast subscribers, they will be able to view select titles. This has been timed to align with the popular annual TV-viewing event from Xfinity - Watchathon Week - which is on its fourth year. Watchathon Week began on Monday, April 18.
Subscribers have a lot more to look forward to as both the companies revealed that additional originals from Crackle, as well as licensed programming, are slated to be pushed out in the ensuing months.
