Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment said it formed a joint venture with Fuel TV to create Fuel TV branded subscription video-on-demand and free ad-supported streaming TV channels. 

Chicken Soup, which lost $20 million in the third quarter, plans to expand its joint-venture efforts in 2024. The company announced cost-cutting moves in August and set up a board committee to review its strategy. 

Chicken Soup said the business deals will drive additional revenues for existing properties it owns and operates utilizing the expertise of third parties. 

Some of Chicken Soup’s current channels are being renamed to create Fuel TV Surf, while LiftTicket will become Fuel TV Snow. 

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The companies are also launching the new channels Fuel TV Skate and Fuel TV Bike.

“Fuel TV is the gold standard for action-sports content, and they are the perfect counterparty for us to work with on this joint venture,” Elana Sofko, chief strategy officer of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, said. “Their expertise, combined with our robust content and advertising teams, will make this a powerful offering.”

Under the terms of the deal, FuelTV will run and operate the channels. Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment divisions Screen Media Ventures will contribute 1091’s library of action sports titles, and Crackle Connex will sell ad inventory.

“We are delighted to join this venture, uniting two of the biggest action sports libraries, and both companies’ prowess in the media industry will allow us to consolidate the leadership in the action sports space,” said Fernando Figueiredo, CEO of Fuel TV. “Moreover, it will give Surf, Skate, Snow and Bike a standalone home for those core viewers that binge their sport for hours. For 20 years, Fuel TV action-sports channel has gathered all these sports and will keep doing it by being the home of hundreds of hours of live events from across the globe.”

Fuel TV left U.S. multichannel lineups in 2013 when Fox Cable Networks converted the network to Fox Sports 2. The action-sports programmer lives on in more than 60 international territories, though, including Portugal, where it’s under license to a company co-owned by CJ Olivares, the general manager when Fox launched it in 2003.

Fuel TV and Olivares now plan a U.S. comeback in 2017 as an ad-supported online channel — and hopefully later as a linear network — with a new company, Every Day Networks.

EDN also encompasses travel-focused OTT service PlanesTrains+Automobiles (PTA) and Business Rockstars, a show aimed at entrepreneurial millennials.

Olivares is EDN’s chief content officer, and other U.S. media veterans in top roles are CEO Andy Schuon (a former MTV programmer), chief operating officer Don Meek (ex of Tribune Co.) and audience development head Austin Wignall (formerly of Fox Networks).

“I think we have a tremendous opportunity right now based on how we’re targeting audiences,” Olivares told The Wire, including using social media to reach “communities of passion.”

OTT viewing obviously is on the rise, and brands are eager to reach passionate fans with programming other than live TV.

Fuel TV’s core sports of surfing and skateboarding will be medal events for the first time in the Olympics at the 2020 games in Tokyo, Olivares added, and “that has generated a lot of excitement around the category.”

Olivares said Fuel TV original series will be reignited, including athlete diary show First Hand and Built to Shred, a program about designing and building obstacles used in motocross and other action sports. Talks are underway to launch Fuel TV in the first quarter on Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, currently vehicles to watch PTA, Olivares said.

Beyond originals, “we’re actively discussing a range of live events across each of the sports, both for U.S. and international,” he said.