The cable company acquired the network, once billed as “CNBC for millennials,” in 2019 for $200 million.
The layoffs affected around a dozen employees, a person with knowledge of the situation told Insider on Thursday. One staffer who was affected by the cuts said Manoj Shamdasani, a news-gathering executive at Cheddar’s parent company, Altice USA, informed workers about the status of their jobs.
Cheddar, the digital-first news network, is now streaming on SmartCast, Vizio’s award-winning Smart TV platform. With this launch, SmartCast users can now access Cheddar’s live linear channel for around-the-clock viewing […]
Business and entertainment news streamer Cheddar has permanently closed its Los Angeles studio amid layoffs at the company. The layoffs stem from its recent consolidation of its two separate live-streaming networks, the business-focused Cheddar and the more general interest Cheddar News.
Jon Steinberg, the CEO and founder of the OTT business news streaming service Cheddar offers insights into his experience building the company, what the acquisition means for him and his role, and how his company has excelled in streaming video. Also, how new programming channels no longer get paid subscriber fees by cable operators of VMVPDs. This interview comes from the OTT News Summit that was hosted by TVNewsCheck.
Exclusives
Jon Steinberg & Cheddar: An OTT Success Story
Jon Steinberg built his OTT business news channel Cheddar into a business that Altice purchased in April for $200 million. Now he’s president of Altice News, a unit that now includes, in addition to Cheddar, News Twelve and I24 news, an international news network. At TVNewsCheck’s OTT News Summit, he talks about how he realized there was a market for the younger-viewer-focused Cheddar, how the channel’s distribution model and programming strategy works, what its audience data reveals, discoverability and more.
On day two of the Pay TV Show a panel of representatives from virtual MVPDs gathered to discuss the future of the TV service and channel bundles.
Altice USA has signed a deal to buy the youth-skewing business news startup Cheddar for $200 million in cash. The acquisition will bolster the broadband and cable giant’s Altice News service as Cheddar offers youth-skewing news content around business, technology, culture and politics. Altice USA last year began offering Cheddar via its Altice One platform and was an early investor in the digital-first company.
Business video net Cheddar plans to launch a second channel focused on national and world news next year. The channel is part of Cheddar’s expansion plans in 2018 and beyond as the company looks to grow its $11 million annual business. The new channel, which will be called Cheddar Big News, will be modeled after CNN’s Headline News in that it will focus on the biggest news stories of the day.
Cheddar is joining forces with WeWork to scale its on-air guest booking operation. It’s building remote studios in WeWork offices around the country, and eventually around the globe, to bring more TV-quality live shots to the network’s weekday live programming slate. The Cheddar team will go live with its first-ever daily broadcast from a WeWork location today in Hollywood.
Tegna’s KXTV To Launch Cheddar Local
The Tegna-owned ABC affiliate will run the business and financial segments twice daily. Tegna could eventually roll out the segments to all of its stations.
Cheddar, an online business news channel that targets millennials, believes it can coax young viewers to look up from their mobile phones to watch old-time broadcast TV, and it’s giving away antennas with Dunkin’ Donuts to prove it. The network will air programming on UHF stations in five markets that reach more than 4 million homes. Cheddar is renting the broadcast spectrum from DTV America, which owns the licenses. Dunkin’ Donuts, which already advertises on Cheddar, will distribute antennas at events in those markets.
