Sony Pictures Television sold its majority share of venerable streaming service Crackle Inc. to Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment Inc., according to a March 28 announcement.

Under the deal, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment – a four-year-old company headquartered in Cos Cob, Conn. – will own majority interest in joint ownership with Sony of the free, ad-supported digital streaming platform.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment will also get access to much of the Sony Pictures and Sony Television library.

Culver City-based Sony, in turn, will get four million, five-year warrants to purchase Class A common stock of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment at various prices.

An online content company, whose motto is “Watch more kindness,” Chicken Soup for the Soul has a market capitalization of $133 million at the close of trading March 28.

Crackle is one of the original digital streaming services. It was founded in 2007, and has brought to the world original programs including, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”

However, Crackle’s market share has shrunk over the years in comparison to Netflix, and it shut down streaming services in the United Kingdom and Australia.

According to the announcement, Crackle has “nearly 10 million monthly active users” to its free service. Streaming industry leader Netflix, by comparison, has 139 million paid subscribers.

Media and entertainment reporter Matthew Blake can be reached at (323)556-8332 or [email protected]