Altice, the New York-based cable television provider with 4.9 million residential customers, has announced that they’ve acquired Cheddar — who has two streaming channels, Cheddar Business and Cheddar News. The $200 million deal will see Cheddar’s founder Jon Steinberg become President of Altice News — which will include Cheddar as well as Altice’s News 12 channel and i24News.
Cheddar Business currently broadcasts 19 hours a day of live news through two networks: Cheddar Business, a business news network covering the most innovative executives, founders, products, and technologies transforming our lives and economy; and Cheddar News, a fast-paced, young, non-partisan general news and headline news network.
The company raised $54 million in funding in four rounds of investment including from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Raine Ventures, Liberty Global, Goldman Sachs, and their new parent Altice. The streaming company grossed $27 million in revenue, up from $11 million 2017 — and expected to be profitable by Q4 2019.
In a statement, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei:
“Cheddar has demonstrated an innovative approach to live news while building an engaged audience, solid followership and a strong brand. As one of Cheddar’s early investors, we have enjoyed our partnership with Jon and admire the entrepreneurial spirit, energy and smart disruptive mentality that he brings to the news business. The Cheddar culture and mindset are the perfect fit for Altice USA, and we’re excited to welcome Jon and the Cheddar team to the Altice family. We look forward to seeing our growing news team continue to deliver the best content for our viewers and more opportunities for our advertisers.”
In January, Cheddar became available on all seven Live TV Streaming Services — PlayStation Vue, fuboTV, Sling TV, Philo, YouTube TV, Hulu Live TV, and DIRECTV NOW.
The channel is also available on ad-supported free platforms like the The Roku Channel, Sinclair’s recently launched STIRR, and Pluto TV, which was just acquired by Viacom. The company has started to get distribution on cable and satellite services like DirecTV, AT&T U-Verse, and WOW. They are also available as a streaming network on the Comcast X1 Platform.