The Newsroom

Cheddar News & Cheddar Business

Online news channels (January 2020)

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GL
globaltraffic24
Mouseboy33 posted:
Well apparently these streaming channels such as Cheddar and CBSN and others have figured out a advertising model that apparently works and makes the channels profitable without having to the worry about securing carriage on pay-tv epg's and such, which can be a nightmare for start-up. I wonder where AlJazeera America would be right now had they decided to go the streaming route rather than the financially disastrous pay-tv route..


Cheddar received a massive amount of VC funding in 2016 to aid its expansion, so advertising isn't necessarily driving its growth at the moment, but it will need to in the next year or two or the project will fizzle out.
MO
Mouseboy33
True. But a channel cannot operate solely in VC funding and not exhibiting any growth. According to Cheddar they gained profitability Q4 last year.
Quote:
2018 revenue looks to be around $27 million up from $11 million in 2017. Our booked revenue for 2019 already stands at $26 million as well, ensuring enormous top line growth in 2019 with the year just beginning and many top tier brands just hearing about Cheddar and our advertising offering for the first time.

Our business also has already shown real operating leverage. The rapid revenue growth of 2018 was accompanied by roughly the same modest absolute dollar EBITDA loss of $4 million we saw in 2017. We will go profitable in Q4 2019 and stay that way.

From CNBC
Quote:
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.
MA
mark Founding member
It certainly sounds like the kind of 'disruptive' approach you'd expect from this kind of channel.

On a related note, does anyone know much about Newsy - a similar-sounding news channel? It seems to only be available through TV services - unlike Cheddar, I can't find a way to watch it via its own website or app. It's on TVplayer, but the feed on there is just breakfiller-style text headlines and none of the programmes mentioned on the website.

Slightly off-topic, but I'll change the thread title if necessary!
MO
Mouseboy33
Newsy is partially based in Chicago. Its been around for a while. Its used to be simply streaming, but now its on many platforms. Including on come pay-tv systems and also on some digital subchannels across the country. Newsy seems to be a juke box-type service and from what I can tell they have a few live programmes across the day and in the evening.

This TVNEWSCHECK article has some pretty good info on the channel
https://tvnewscheck.com/article/237358/newsy-pushes-forward-as-rivals-falter/

Quote:
Those moves are beginning to pay off. The company earned $25 million in revenue in 2018, marking 144% year-over-year growth. “It’s still small numbers, but it’s nice, steady growth,” says Carolyn Micheli, Scripps’ VP of corporate communications and investor relations.

Micheli says Scripps expects that revenue growth to be in the 60%-70% range in 2019 and that Newsy will move toward profitability by 2021 without cutting back expenses.

Rather than fill its airtime with talking heads and panels, Newsy opts for more field reporting and enterprise approaches. And instead of getting waylaid by the latest political squabble or tweetstorm generated by the president, it devotes its coverage to stories like the Midwest flooding, child sex abuse in the church and 9/11 first responders.

That staff is another key differentiator from Newsy’s peers. Newsy’s on-air reporters skew young and ethnically diverse, and “they also aren’t necessarily from the typical television news factory,” Heyward says.


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http://www.ravenswoodstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Ravenswood-Studio_Newsy-Television-Studio_Custom-Fabrication_Images-1.jpg
Not sure how any of these channels are available in the UK. But the streaming universe has really taken off in the US and Canada. Fire Sticks, Roku, SmartTvs and etc are the way that many people are accessing these channels. The new Samsung Smart tvs load a host of streaming channels right into the tv itself. There are loads loads of streaming networks that are coming online constantly and seeing how many of the major players are getting in on the game the future will be interesting to watch.

The advertising model the channels are using clearly seems to be working because many of them have been going for a while and have reached profitability that like Cheddar and Plutotv these streaming services are getting scooped by the big players because they are making money.

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