VRV (officially pronounced "verve", though it is also referred to by its letters) is an

over-the-top An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms: the types of companies that traditionally act as controllers or distributors ...

streaming service launched in November 2016. Owned by Crunchyroll, LLC, run by

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...

through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's

Aniplex is a Japanese anime, music production and anime licensee company owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan. Established in September 1995, Aniplex has been involved in the production and distribution of several anime series, such as both '' Fullm ...

, the service bundles together anime, speculative fiction and gaming related channels and the service targets these large

fandom A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant ...

s. Some of VRV's content can be streamed for free, while other content requires a subscription. The subscriptions to its channels can be purchased individually, or in a premium bundle. VRV is available only in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, despite some of its partnered content being available for viewing worldwide outside the platform.

History

Ellation, owners of Crunchyroll, formally announced the launch of VRV on June 14, 2016. Its initial partners included

Rooster Teeth Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of W ...

Seeso Seeso was an over-the-top subscription streaming service owned by Comcast through NBCUniversal, launched on January 7, 2016, and closed on November 8, 2017. It provided comedy content such as original and broadcast television shows. History O ...

Nerdist Nerdist Industries, LLC is part of the digital division of Legendary Entertainment. Nerdist Industries was founded as a sole podcast (The Nerdist Podcast) created by Chris Hardwick but later spread to include a network of podcasts, a premium conte ...

, Geek & Sundry, and

Frederator Frederator Studios is an American animation television production studio which is a division of Frederator Networks, Inc. It was founded by Fred Seibert in 1997 with its first series launching in 1998. (Seibert resigned from Frederator in Augus ...

's Cartoon Hangover. On September 29, 2016,

Funimation Crunchyroll, LLC, previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022, is an American entertainment company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex that specializes ...

Adam Savage Adam Whitney Savage (born July 15, 1967) is an American special effects designer and fabricator, actor, educator, and television personality and producer, best known as the former co-host (with Jamie Hyneman) of the Discovery Channel televisi ...

Tested ''Tested'' is a live album by punk rock band Bad Religion. It was recorded in the USA, Canada, Germany, Estonia, Denmark, Italy and Austria, in 1996, and released in 1997. It is Bad Religion's second live album. Instead of using crowd microphon ...

RiffTrax RiffTrax is an American company that produces scripted humorous commentary tracks which are synced to mostly public domain feature films, education shorts, and television episodes. With the talents of former ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (''M ...

CollegeHumor CollegeHumor is an Internet comedy company based in Los Angeles. Aside from producing content for release on YouTube, it was also a former humor website owned by InterActiveCorp ( IAC) until January 2020, when IAC withdrew funding and the websi ...

, Machinima.com, Ginx TV, Shudder, and

Mondo Media Mondo Media is an American multimedia company that mainly produces online animation. The company was founded in 1988 by John Evershed and Deirdre O'Malley in San Francisco, California. Before ''Mondo Mini Shows'', the company initially crea ...

were announced as new partners. VRV would officially launch on November 14, 2016. On August 9, 2017, the VRV Select channel was launched, featuring content from other sources. It was also announced that Machinima, Ginx, and Rifftrax were being dropped from the service. On the same day as VRV Select's announcement, Seeso announced via its

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

page that it would be shutting down by the end of 2017. Though RiffTrax, Machinima and Seeso's channels were dropped, some of their content, including Seeso's '' The Cyanide & Happiness Show'', ''

HarmonQuest ''HarmonQuest'' is an American adult animated web series created by Dan Harmon and Spencer Crittenden. The show is part animated, part live action. Harmon and comedians Erin McGathy and Jeff Davis, along with game master Crittenden, play a fant ...

'', '' Hidden America with Jonah Ray'', and ''

My Brother, My Brother and Me ''My Brother, My Brother and Me'' (often abbreviated as ''MBMBaM'', pronounced ) is a weekly comedy advice podcast distributed by the Maximum Fun network and hosted by brothers Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy. Regular episodes of the p ...

'' would migrate to VRV Select. On November 21, 2017, CuriosityStream and

Mubi Mubi (; stylized as MUBI; The Auteurs before 2010) is a global curated film streaming platform, production company and film distributor. Mubi produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers, which are exclusivel ...

joined VRV. On December 12, 2017,

DramaFever DramaFever was a video streaming website owned by Warner Bros. that offered on-demand streaming video of documentaries, movies, and TV shows with subtitles. DramaFever's content offering was both ad-supported for regular users and available i ...

joined VRV. On May 3, 2018, it was announced that Tested was being dropped, with its content moving to VRV Select. On August 28, 2018, VRV launched

NickSplat NickRewind (formerly The '90s Are All That, The Splat, and NickSplat) was an American late night programming block that broadcast nightly over the channel space of TeenNick. The block showed reruns of mid-late 1980s, 1990s, and early-mid 200 ...

, named after the

TeenNick TeenNick is an American pay-TV channel that is operated by the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Aimed primarily at teens and tweens, its programming includes a variety of live-action series inherited from sister channel Nic ...

programming block, featuring classic

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Group. It ...

series from the 1990s and early 2000s. On October 12, 2018, Shout! Factory's content, such as '' Mystery Science Theater 3000'' and ''

ReBoot In computing, rebooting is the process by which a running computer system is restarted, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reboots can be either a cold reboot (alternatively known as a hard reboot) in which the power to the system is physi ...

'', were made available to watch on VRV Select. On October 18, 2018, Funimation announced that they would be leaving VRV, as their partnership with Crunchyroll ended, and all of their titles would disappear on November 9, 2018. On that same day, VRV announced that

HIDIVE Sentai Filmworks, LLC or just Sentai, is an American entertainment company owned by AMC Networks. Located in Houston, the company specializes in the dubbing and distribution of Japanese animation and Asian cinema. Its post-production arm is S ...

would be joining the service to replace Funimation. On November 1, 2018, HIDIVE was launched on VRV and it was announced that

Boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning ...

would be joining the service on November 13, 2018. On November 7, 2018, Season 1 of TBS' ''

Final Space ''Final Space'' is an adult animated space opera comedy drama television series created by Olan Rogers and developed by Rogers and David Sacks. The series involves an astronaut named Gary Goodspeed and his immensely powerful alien friend Moonca ...

'' was made available to watch on VRV Select On November 8, 2018,

Otter Media Otter Media Holdings, LLC was an American digital media company owned by WarnerMedia. The company was founded in 2014 by AT&T and The Chernin Group as a holding company of the anime streaming service, Crunchyroll who the latter invested in 2013 ...

announced '' Mike Tyson Mysteries'' and ''

Jabberjaw ''Jabberjaw'' is an American animated television series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired 16 original episodes on ABC from September 11 to December 18, 1976. Reruns continued on ABC until September 3 ...

'' as upcoming programs for VRV that were going to be added in 2018. However, both series never actually came to the service. ''Mike Tyson Mysteries'' was eventually added to Hulu in 2020 and

Tubi Tubi is an American over-the-top content platform and ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation. The service was launched on April 1, 2014, and is based in Los Angeles, California. In January 2021, Tubi reached 33 million monthly ...

in 2022, while ''Jabberjaw'' has yet to appear on a streaming service. On August 9, 2021, Crunchyroll was acquired by

-owned

, making Sony the new owner of VRV. On September 8, 2021, HIDIVE announced that it would be leaving VRV on September 30, 2021. On November 18, 2021, it was announced via email to subscribers that Rooster Teeth would be leaving VRV on December 13, 2021. Cartoon Hangover was also removed at the same time. As of February 2022, the only remaining channels are Crunchyroll, Mondo, and VRV Select. On March 1, 2022, it was announced that VRV would be merged into Crunchyroll itself, alongside

and

Wakanim Wakanim SAS was a French subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by U.S.-based Funimation, a joint venture of Sony Corporation of America's two subsidiaries: Sony Pictures Television and Sony Music Entertainment Japa ...

Channels

Current

* Crunchyroll—

Anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

and simulcasts *

—Adult animation * VRV Select—A curated selection of movies and shows for premium subscribers

Former

–Cartoons from

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

(left December 1, 2020) * Cartoon Hangover—Web-original

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

from

Frederator Studios Frederator Studios is an American animation television production studio which is a division of Frederator Networks, Inc. It was founded by Fred Seibert in 1997 with its first series launching in 1998. (Seibert resigned from Frederator in Augu ...

(left December 13, 2021) * CuriosityStream—Non-fiction documentaries relating to science, technology, nature, and world history (left November 19, 2019) *

—

Korean drama Korean dramas (; RR: ''Han-guk deurama''), more popularly known as K-dramas, are television series in the Korean language, made in South Korea. They are popular worldwide, especially in Asia, partially due to the spread of Korean popular cultu ...

s (shut down on October 16, 2018, subsequently left VRV days after) *

—Japanese anime dubbed into English (left November 9, 2018) * Geek & Sundry—Geek culture and lifestyle programming (left April 1, 2019) * Ginx TV— Esports-related content *

—Dubbed and subtitled anime (left September 30, 2021) * Machinima—gaming-related content (some content is still available via VRV Select, the rest will be available through Rooster Teeth soon) *

—Curates classic and arthouse films (left October 2018) *

—Fandom-related news, podcasts, and comedy programming (left April 1, 2019) *

NickRewind NickRewind (formerly The '90s Are All That, The Splat, and NickSplat) was an American late night programming block that broadcast nightly over the channel space of TeenNick. The block showed reruns of mid-late 1980s, 1990s, and early-mid 2000 ...

—Television series from Nickelodeon that aired in the 1990s and early 2000s (left August 29, 2020) *

— MST3K-style movie commentaries (some content is still available via VRV Select) *

—Web animation and gaming-related content (left December 13, 2021) *

—original and licensed comedy programming (shut down on November 8, 2017, some original programming were migrated to VRV Select) * Shudder— Horror films (left August 1, 2019) *

(left May 3, 2018, some content is still available via VRV Select)

Original programming

Series

Continuations

Availability

VRV can be accessed through its website, as well as apps for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

(on iPhone and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...

), Android,

Android TV Android TV is a smart TV operating system based on Android (operating system), Android and developed by Google for television sets, digital media players, set-top boxes, and soundbars. A successor to Google TV (operating system), Google TV, it fe ...

tvOS tvOS (formerly known as Apple TV Software) is an operating system developed by Apple Inc. for the Apple TV, a digital media player. In the first-generation Apple TV, Apple TV Software was based on Mac OS X. Starting with the second-generation, ...

on Apple TV (on 4th generation and 4K), Chromecast,

Fire TV Amazon Fire TV (stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via the Internet to a connected ...

, Fire HD, newer

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services. The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduced ...

streaming devices,

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

, and

Xbox Series X/S The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 202 ...

Notes

References

External links

* {{VOD services American companies established in 2016 American companies disestablished in 2022 Crunchyroll Streaming television in the United States Internet television streaming services Video game culture Defunct video on demand services Subscription video on demand services Companies based in San Francisco Mass media companies established in 2016 Mass media companies disestablished in 2022 Internet properties established in 2016 Internet properties disestablished in 2022 PlayStation 4 software 2018 mergers and acquisitions 2021 mergers and acquisitions Former Sony subsidiaries Former AT&T subsidiaries