Crackle Plus Names Philippe Guelton President, Appoints Three Sony Vets To Top Posts

Dade Hayes

Crackle Plus, as the new venture between Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment and Sony is now known, has appointed Philippe Guelton as president.

Guelton, who joined the company in January after serving in top roles at Thrillist and SheKnows Media, will also remain EVP of CSS Entertainment and president of VOD networks.

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Chicken Soup acquired a controlling interest in Crackle in March, with Sony Pictures Entertainment remaining a 49% stakeholder. Financial terms were not disclosed for the deal, which gives Sony warrants to purchase stock at various price points, though it remains an active partner.

Crackle, which has rebranded as Crackle Plus, is a free, ad-supported service that is actively used by about 10 million people each month and has 26 million registered users. It joins Chicken Soup’s portfolio of other free streaming services, including Popcornflix, Truli and Frightpix.

In three other related management moves, Darren Olive is now EVP of ad sales; Jason Schaeffer is SVP of business development, marketing and business intelligence; and Tony Simon is SVP of content and operations.

Guelton will continue to report to Elana Sofko, COO of CSS Entertainment. Olive, Schaeffer and Simon will report to Guelton.

“Crackle Plus represents an exciting new chapter for CSS Entertainment,” CEO Bill Rouhana said. “We need a highly skilled and visionary team to navigate the coming months, and to create the best ad-supported video-on-demand platform possible. I am confident that Philippe Guelton is the best candidate to lead the new Crackle Plus team.”

Olive, Schaeffer and Simon are moving over to Crackle Plus from Sony Pictures Television, where they were VPs of national video sales, global revenue operations and global network and content operations, respectively.

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