Charter Communications is now bundling at no additional cost the new partially ad-supported version of Spanish-language subscription streaming service ViX for customers who take Univision linear channels as part of their Spectrum TV Select or Mi Plan Latino programming package. 

The arrangement is part of a multiyear carriage deal signed between Charter and TelevisaUnivision.

Also read: TelevisaUnivision, Charter Reach Carriage Deal That Includes Ad-Supported ViX as Part of Bundle

As it did with Disney back in September, Charter is looking to claw back value from programmers who are committing some of their best assets to subscription streaming. With Disney, Charter was able to negotiate wholesale access to Disney Plus and ESPN Plus so it could bundle these streaming services for its video subscribers. 

Through ViX’s ad-supported premium tier, subscribers can stream the service’s full original content slate, including the latest series Lalola, El Extraño Retorno de Diana Salazar, El Gallo de Oro and De Viaje con los Derbez; hit movies Es por su bien, Radical and ¿Quieres ser mi hijo?; and the most anticipated new releases coming this summer and fall, including Chiquis Sin Filtro and Y Llegaron de Noche. ViX subscribers will also have access to the best soccer content all year long, including Liga MX, the most-watched soccer league in the U.S., and UEFA Champions League, one of the most prestigious club competitions in the world.

“By working with our programming partners to include streaming apps like ViX in our video packages at no extra cost, we continue to evolve our new video paradigm with extraordinary additional value for customers,” Tom Montemagno, executive VP of programming acquisition for Charter, said in a statement.

“With our new ViX offering living alongside TelevisaUnivision’s full linear channel lineup, Spectrum customers have access to an unprecedented amount of Spanish-language content across all genres,” added Mike Angus, executive VP of global distribution partnerships at TelevisaUnivision.

Charter Communications is offering Peacock Premium streaming free for one year to its nearly 16 million Spectrum TV subscribers. 

Those customers who subscribe only to Spectrum Internet, meanwhile, can receive three free months of of the $4.99-a-month Comcast/NBCUniversal-owned SVOD service. 

The offer starts Monday. Users can visit peacocktv.com/spectrum to sign up. Charter agreed to offer Peacock as part of a broader program licensing deal with NBCU announced back in January. 

“As the video landscape rapidly changes, we are committed to innovating and finding ways to provide the most valuable content to our customers, wherever and whenever they want, and making Peacock Premium available to millions of Spectrum customers nationwide furthers this goal,"  said Tom Montemagno, executive VP of programming acquisition for Charter, in a statement. 

It's the second recent aggressive promotional deal tied to Peacock, with NBCU and Google launching a promo that gives purchasers of Android TV and Google TV-enabled devices free from Nov. 22 - Dec. 31 access to Peacock Premium. 

Peacock Premium is already free to Comcast's more than 18.5 million Xfinity TV customers. 

Usage of free, ad-supported Peacock appears to be robust, with Comcast reporting 54 million signups through September 30. But enlistments for the partially ad-supported $4.99 Peacock Premium tier, as well as the $9.99-a-month completely ad-free Peacock Premium Plus, are believes to be under 20 million. And the projections look even worse for those actually seeing a monthly $4.99 or $9.99 hit to a credit card. 

While Comcast and NBCU look to expand the pool of possible Peacock Premium subscribers through promos, they're also making content. Last week, NBCU announced that all films on the 2022 Universal Filmed Entertainment Group slatge would stream exclusively on Peacock just 45 days after their theatrical premiere. ■

Ah, the hunter has become the hunted! The blackout-er has become the blackout-ed! (Yeah, we’re playing up the irony here.)

Cable company Charter Communications has informed its customers that its Spectrum TV app is no longer available for download on Roku, with the cable operator's distribution deal with the OTT company expired. 

The “blackout” of the cable company’s OTT app on the No. 1 connected TV device platform was first discovered by TV Answer Man analyst Phillip Swann. A Charter rep told him that the Spectrum TV app, which lets Charter pay TV subscribers watch their service without a traditional set-top box, can still be used if the customer already has it downloaded on their Roku device.

UPDATED 12/14/2020: In a Monday morning email, a Roku press rep said, "This is not a carriage dispute as noted." Spectrum TV app downloads, he said, were disabled because Roku's deal with Charter expired. But the app has not been blocked--those who already have it can still use it. Roku and Charter are working on a renewal.

"Importantly, all current users still have access to the app," the rep added. 

The Spectrum TV app had been available on Roku since 2015. 

This isn’t the first time Roku has pulled download access to a pay TV operator’s app—the AT&T TV app was removed from the platform a year ago over fees and advertising issues, but was restored earlier this year

The Spectrum TV app can still be accessed on Apple TV and iOS devices, as well as on Samsung smart TVs and Microsoft Xbox consoles 

Programs aimed at keeping residential customers connected online during the nationwide pandemic helped fuel growth at Charter Communications in Q2.

Charter said it added 102,000 video subscribers in Q2, a reversal of the 150,000 video customers it lost in the prior year but entirely the result of programs like the Federal Communications Commission Keep America Connected pledge and others, where providers agreed not to disconnect customers for non-payment.

Charter said that 149,000 video customers signed up in Q2 as part of the FCC Keep America Connected pledge and 12,000 joined through its Remote Education Offer. The company said nearly 50% of REO customers chose to subscribe to other services like video, voice and mobile and were billed for those products.The REO program expired on June 30, and Charter said 90% of cumulative connects through that program have retained service through July 27.

On a conference call with analysts, Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge said regardless of how those customers came to the company, they are acting like any other subscriber that joined via a traditional promotion.

“From a profile perspective they look just like our regular customer base and they are just like our regular customer base,” Rutledge said. “They very much are behaving like all customers we create. We look at that offer in many ways as a conventional offer with a broadband benefit, but it brought in real customers that subscribe and act like existing customers.”

However, he didn’t expect to see continued video growth, adding that it was a combination of the pandemic which kept people stuck in their homes and in front of their TV sets, and the programs.

“The secular trends for video haven’t changed,” Rutledge said.

Despite subscriber gains, Charter said video revenue was down 0.4% for the period to $4.4 billion, which the company said was due to a higher mix of lower-priced video packages and the waiver overdue customer balances.

The FCC program also was a big factor in broadband gains. Charter said it added about 825,000 residential and business broadband subscribers in the quarter, but added that about 600,000 residences and 100,000 businesses applied for the FCC program, and at its peak, 208,000 residences and 14,000 businesses would have been disconnected for non-payment. About 30% of those Keep America Connected customers’ bills were current and more than 60% were making partial or full payments. Charter said that to help those customers with overdue balances, it waived $76 million residential, $6 million business and $3 million of mobile receivables in the quarter.

Charter also said it added 325,000 wireless customers in the period, ending the quarter with 1.7 million Spectrum Mobile subscribers.

The subscriber growth helped fuel a 3.1% lift in total revenue to $11.7 billion. Adjusted EBITDA rose 7.3% to $4.5 billion.

A new carriage agreement between Charter Communications and The Walt Disney Company will allow the cable operator to integrate the media conglomerate’s popular streaming services natively on its set-tops.

But the question now is, will Charter actually make Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu native to its Spectrum TV user experience?

“The new agreement contemplates Charter’s future distribution of Disney’s streaming services, including Hulu, ESPN+ and the soon-to-be-launched Disney+,” reads a joint press release published yesterday to announce the deal.

Related: Charter, Disney Reach Distribution Pact

“This agreement will allow Spectrum to continue delivering to its customers popular Disney content, makes possible future distribution by Spectrum of Disney streaming services, and will begin an important collaborative effort to address the significant issue of piracy mitigation,” said Tom Montemagno, executive VP of programming acquisition for Charter.

Charter has integrated Netflix on its Worldbox set-top platform. But the No. 2 U.S. cable operator hasn’t been nearly as aggressive as, say, Comcast in regard to making popular OTT services native to its pay TV user experience. In fact, despite declaring its intentions to integrate YouTube into the Spectrum TV experience two years ago, it’s unclear as to what streaming platforms beyond Netflix are watchable in the UX.

Update: Netflix integration is available to Charter subscribers who have the Worldbox 2.0 platform, which uses a hybrid IP/QAM set-top. How many of Charter's 16.3 million Spectrum TV users have Worldbox 2.0?Worldbox 2.0 rolled out in the winter-spring of 2018. Just prior to the deployment, Charter said it had around 2 million Worldbox 1.0 customers in the market. Numbers for the platform have been tough to come by since then. In January, Tom Rutledge, CEO and Chairman of Charter, said the company is deploying its Worldbox platform “on the increment” across its footprint.

It’s unclear as to whether Charter will even stick with Worldbox long term, with the company revealing in May that it has had talks with Comcast about licensing its X1 video platform. Notably, X1 is chock full of popular OTT services that are now native to the platform. 

Disney last week announced that Disney+ would be bundled in with ESPN+ and the base tier of Hulu for $12.99 a month.