CBS and Meredith Corp. announced a new long-term affiliation deal that has some heavy OTT overtones.
The deal, which renews station affiliation deals for four stations that serve more than 5.5 million homes (WGCL in Atlanta, Ga.; KPHO in Phoenix, Ariz.; KCTV in Kansas City, Mo.; and WNEM in Flint, Mich.), also renews distribution on CBS All Access, as well as a distribution commitment for distribution on Hulu’s coming OTT-TV service. Earlier this month, CBS and Hulu announced a deal to add CBS, CBS Sports Network and cable net Pop to Hulu’s live streaming service.
The Meredith commitment will help to ensure that Hulu will gain access to local CBS feeds in markets outside the CBS owned-and-operated markets. PlayStation Vue, Sony's OTT-TV service, has been racking up deals with a large swath of CBS affiliates.
Hulu’s coming virtual MVPD service is expected to launch in Q1, cost less than $40 per month, and tie in Hulu’s $8 per month SVOD service (with limited ads) and a cloud DVR .
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The latest CBS-Meredith agreement also factors in participation in “certain of the CBS Television Network's future new entrant digital distribution deals by all seven Meredith owned-and-operated CBS affiliates.”
Meredith's CBS affiliates also include KMOV in St. Louis, Mo., WFSB in Hartford, Conn. and WSHM in Springfield, Mass. The affiliation agreements for those three stations were renewed last year.
"We are happy to extend our affiliation agreement with CBS in these four key markets and further our relationship with CBS on certain digital opportunities,” Paul Karpowicz, the president of Meredith's Local Media Group, said in a statement.
