New Crackle partnership brings Plex thousands of movies & TV shows
Crackle’s library of movies and TV shows are now on Plex as part of its ad-supported video on-demand collection.
Plex announced the addition of Crackle on Friday. It brings thousands of more movies and TV shows to anyone with a free Plex account.
“For our US audiences, today we drop literally thousands of delicious free titles from our latest partner — Crackle, a leading video entertainment provider of TV and videos launched about ten years ago,” Plex said in a blog post.
Plex jumped into the ad-supported video market in December, joining platforms such as Pluto TV and tubi. It’s a fairly new business that has cropped during the cord cutting movement, and one that major media companies have been eager to incorporate.
Viacom bought Pluto TV last spring for $340 million, and has used it as a vehicle for monetizing its vault of movies and TV shows through advertising. Fox Corporation bought tubi for $440 million in March, adding 20,000 new titles to the streaming service.
Crackle is part of the larger Crackle Plus network formed by Sony Pictures Television and Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Inc.
Plex has voiced no plans for a sale.
But the sizable purchases from Viacom and FOX signal that media companies see a bright future, and attractive revenues, with ad-supported streaming.
From the consumer side, ad-supported streaming represents an alternative to fee-based, and live TV streaming services that have routinely been hit with price hikes.
A pivot for Plex: Movies & TV shows from Crackle
Plex has largely operated as a software hub used for aggregating personal movie collections and music stored on hard drives on personal computers.
Over the last three years, the company has pivoted into offering a live TV guide and DVR service for free over-the-air channels, aggregating local news feeds and podcasts.
Plex kicked off its partnership with Crackle with the addition of some blockbuster titles. Captain Phillips, Patriot Games, The Illusionist, and Failure to Launch became available for streaming through Crackle.
A few popular TV series such as Hell’s Kitchen, the Crackle Original Snatch, and Roseanne are also now on Plex.
Plex is launching a new blog called The Watch List that offers recommendations and curated lists of movies
Founder and Editor of The Cord Cutting Report. Before launching the site in 2016, he worked for more than two decades as a staff writer or correspondent for a number of daily newspapers, including The Boston Globe. His enthusiasm for tech began with the Atari 2600. Follow @james_kimble
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