Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Crunchyroll, the popular anime streaming giant, on Wednesday launched its own free, ad-supported 24-hour anime channel across the U.S. for an “anime-curious audience.”
The new 24/7 linear channel is a collaboration between Crunchyroll and GSN (Game Show Network), which is part of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
It is available on third-party streaming platforms like Amazon Freevee, LG Channels, The Roku Channel, and VIZIO WatchFree+.
“The Crunchyroll channel is a gateway to the world of anime where we will guide viewers to discover new worlds, new stories, and new characters. And thanks to our distribution partners at launch, millions of fans have easy access to the medium that is taking the world by storm!” said Rahul Purini, President of Crunchyroll.
Tim Carry, GSN’s EVP of Distribution, added, “GSN is thrilled by the massive response from our platform partners for this channel, which is a testament to Crunchyroll’s brand and library. We are grateful to bring this channel to market.”
The new Crunchyroll channel will include English-dubbed fan-favorite catalog anime series at launch, such as Horimiya, Ranking of Kings, Moriarty the Patriot, PSYCHO–PASS, Arifureta, Sugar Apple Fairytale, To Your Eternity, and Code Geass.
Further, the new and premium anime content will continue to remain on Crunchyroll’s subscription and ad-supported VOD services, with the linear channel meant to “promote the growing medium of anime.”
Crunchyroll said it has plans to introduce other promotional, genre and themed programming blocks in the future to give viewers a taste of the varied anime coming out of Japan.
