Chicken Soup For The Soul is the parent company behind Redbox, Crackel, and the streaming service by the same name. Recently the company has been hit hard by the decline in ad revenue on its free streaming services and the drop in DVD rentals at its Redbox locations. This has led to the company seeing its revenues drop 75% in the 1st quarter of 2024 compared to the same period of 2023, according to a SEC filing first spotted by NextTV.
Chicken Soup For The Soul is in a tough situation after acquiring Redbox in 2022 for $50 million in stock and an assumption of $325 million in debt. Add on top of that a shaky media environment with cratering ad revenue and quarterly losses, and the company’s future is very much in the air. In August, CEO William J. Rouhana said that the company was holding a strategic review to evaluate its opportunities, which is business speak for putting itself up for sale.
Chicken Soup for The Soul last year announced that it was in active discussions for a potential sale back in October of this year but so far nothing has come from these talks.
Like many media companies, they have likely been impacted by a soft ad market that has negatively impacted revenues. For a company that heavily relies on ad-supported streaming, this market has to negatively impact the service. Right now, the company seems confident that they will be able to work through these issues and pay their partners. For now, we will have to wait and see what happens.
Chicken Soup for The Soul has not replied to our request for comment at the time of this posting.
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