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Cable co buys Cheddar TV

Sound+Vision. Altice USA, a large broadband communications and video services company based in the US, is to acquire digital news company Cheddar in a deal reported to be worth $200m. The company, dubbed the “CNBC of the internet,” focuses on business news with 19 hours of programming per day.

It is viewable in 40m US homes on Sling TV, DirecTV NOW, Hulu, YouTube TV, Sony PlayStation, Vue, Snapchat, fuboTV, Philo, Amazon, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook and 60% of smart TVs. Cheddar claims to attract 400m monthly video views. Cheddar founder and CEO Jon Steinberg (ex BuzzFeed and MailOnline) will stay on to lead Altice News, which now includes Cheddar, News 12 and i24NEWS, an Israel-based 24-hour international news network.

Cheddar launched in 2016 with Altice as an early investor, along with Amazon, AT&T, Comcast Ventures, Goldman Sachs, the New York Stock Exchange and other VCs. It is said to be on track to generate $50m of advertising in 2019.

Altice