Sony Pictures is launching its Crackle video entertainment service outside the US for the first time, opening in the UK and Australia. The ad-supported Crackle offers movies and TV shows from Sony Pictures plus made-for-the-Web short-form series.
Its content is distributed at Crackle’s Web site, on Sony’s Bravia Internet-connectable TV sets, plus at AOL, Bebo, Boxee, Break, Dailymotion, Friendster, Metacafe and YouTube. It’s distributed on mobile networks like Qualcomm’s FLO TV and Verizon Wireless’ VCast.
Crackle has its own player, which it says provides content protection and consolidated, dynamic ad serving network wide. All of the content that’s available in the States won’t necessarily be available in the UK and Australia because of contract restrictions. Crackle is not available in either Canada or New Zealand.
Crackle is no Hulu. It has about three million viewers a month compared to Hulu’s 45 million. The time spent watching Hulu per session is almost an hour; for Crackle it’s only five minutes.
Eric Berger, senior VP of digital networks, said in a statement, “Crackle has built a proven distribution and ad network in the US that we’re replicating now around the world. Our content is chosen and programmed for the true video buff who loves movies and television shows and also wants to discover the best new content on the Web.”
Paul Littmann, senior VP of pay television and new media international distribution for Sony Pictures, said, “Crackle is a great example of SPT’s strategy to bring great content to consumers and advertisers on a variety of platforms.” Crackle was named Grouper until Sony acquired it in 2006.