Broadcasting giant Sinclair on Wednesday officially closed the sale of its free, ad-supported streaming site STIRR, which Cord Cutters News first broke earlier this week.
Startup Thinking Media acquired the streaming service. The company bills itself as a “pioneer in cloud solutions for streaming services,” with a focus on working with ad-supported content. It appears to have launched last year, according to its LinkedIn profile. A spokeswoman for Sinclair confirmed the deal’s closing, but declined to offer a comment.
The deal marks a quiet end of STIRR, which launched in 2019 and represented the broadcast company’s attempt to get into the world of streaming. At one point, it boasted more than 100 free live channels and more than 5,000 hours of movies and television shows. It also allowed people to stream local live news programming.
STIRR is a shell of itself, with only four live channels and a handful of mostly unknown movies and TV shows available on demand just two days ago. Gone are its live news programs. Since the deal has closed, the live-streaming channels are gone, leaving only the on-demand content.
Ironically, STIRR’s sale comes after a year in which free, ad-supported streaming services had their moment in the spotlight, with seemingly every company launching their own version complete with dozens to hundreds of channels. Even the subscription services have launched their own cheaper, ad-based plans.
It’s unclear what Thinking Media will do with STIRR. Given how barren the service has become, it’s likely that the deal didn’t come with any of Sinclair’s content.