Cheddar has aggressively pushed its programming onto a variety of pay-TV platforms and free streaming services by not charging affiliate fees — revenue paid from a pay-TV provider to the content creator. Cheddar’s linear programming is available to 40 million households through deals with Dish’s Sling TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now, Hulu With Live TV, YouTube TV and others.
Rather than collecting fees from providers, the company has made money through advertising and is on pace to double its revenue to about $50 million this year, Goei said.
Goei said he was impressed that Steinberg took a niche idea — business news for young people — and grew it into a respectable business through entrepreneurial force. He’s now backed by a company with a market capitalization of $16 billion and an enterprise value of $39 billion, which factors in all of its debt, including what it raised to acquire New York-area cable provider Cablevision for $17.7 billion in 2016.
“What I really care about is Jon being able to do better with our existing businesses and create original content,” Goei said. “This is about maximizing underinvested and underutilized assets at Altice USA.”
The deal for Cheddar was all in cash, though Steinberg, who owns a significant stake, will use half of his proceeds to buy Altice USA stock, Goei said. Steinberg couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Cheddar raised $54 million in venture funding from investors including AT&T, Comcast Ventures (owned by CNBC parent Comcast), Raine Ventures, Liberty Global, Goldman Sachs and Lightspeed Ventures.