Cox Communications has announced that free-to-consumer, ad-supported streaming service Tubi is now available on its Contour video platform.

Contour, of course, is the licensed version of Comcast’s X1 video platform, which debuted Tubi as a native, voice-controlled service back in November.

With the deal, Tubi now has native integration with two of the three biggest U.S. cable operators—a unique position among AVOD companies.

Related: Comcast Integrates Tubi Into X1

“Our partnership with Cox expands upon our mission to make entertainment accessible to everyone,” said Farhad Massoudi, CEO of Tubi, in a statement. “With the addition of Cox Contour, Tubi will continue to have the widest distribution of any ad-supported streaming service.”

Start-up Tubi boasts a library of 12,000 movies and TV shows—a collection it’s currently trying to bolster with the recent securing of a $25 million loan back in January.

The AVOD has also had recent M&A talks with companies including Viacom. With rival streaming platform Pluto TV subsequently purchased by Viacom for $340 million, Tubi has used its resources to build its library and stay in the news.

Recent deals have included archival series pickups from NBCUniversal, as well as Warner Bros. TV.

Canada’s Videotron said it will tap Comcast’s X1 platform to power a new IPTV service.

Videotron, the Montreal-based MSO with 1.65 million cable TV subs (and 1.59 million subs on its digital TV platform), didn’t announce when it plans to roll out the new IPTV product. The MSO has been asked for further comment.

Update: Videotron said the IPTV solution is currently in development and presently is not commenting on anticipated timing of its launch. 

With Videotron on board, Comcast adds another major cable operator to the list of those that have licensed/syndicated its X1 platform. Cox Communications and Canada’s Shaw Communications have already rolled out new X1-powered video services, and Rogers Communications, also of Canada, has plans to launch an X1-based IPTV product in early 2018.

RELATED: Rogers Sees ‘Soft Launch’ of X1-Based Video Platform by Early 2018

Videotron also has not announced its X1-facing product roadmap, but Comcast’s platform supports a cloud-based guide for set-tops and mobile devices, a remote with voice navigation, and cloud DVR services. Comcast has also integrated its X1 platform for set-tops with OTT services/apps from Netflix and Pandora, and has plans underway to do the same with Sling TV and YouTube.  

RELATED: Comcast to Stream YouTube on X1 Boxes

“We are very pleased with our decision to choose this state-of-the-art platform,” Manon Brouillette, Videotron’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “Combined with the power of Videotron’s network and its rich array of content, it will enable us to continue offering our customers the best possible experience and will strengthen our technology leadership.”

“XFINITY X1 continues to be a game-changer, allowing millions of people to search and navigate live TV, on demand movies and shows, web video, apps and more in a simple, fast and intuitive way,” added Tony Werner, president of technology and product for Comcast Cable. “The platform has changed the experience of watching video and our partnership with Videotron will extend X1’s reach to even more users.”

Comcast’s strategy to license X1 to other operators won’t necessarily move the financial needle at the company in a big way, but it will help Comcast expand its cloud-based platform outside its traditional footprint.

“I wouldn’t point to licensing X1 as something people should be baking into their expectations as a big financial mover for us,” Mike Cavanagh, Comcast’s recently named EVP and CFO, said Monday at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference.  “But, nonetheless, the ubiquity of our platform outside our footprint, we think, is a good thing.”

Comcast’s X1 licensing efforts ramped up again after the MSO dropped its pursuit to merge with Time Warner Cable, a move that obviously would’ve broadened the reach and driven more scale into that platform.

Since then, Comcast’s X1 licensing strategy has found some early success with Cox Communications, which has a national deal in place, and with Canada’s Shaw Communications, which is testing Comcast’s platform ahead of an expected commercial launch.

Cavanagh reiterated that Comcast ended Q3 with a 25% penetration with X1, noting that it recently ramped up deployment to 40,000 X1 boxes per day. He also did not disagree with UBS analyst’s John Hodulik estimate that Comcast will have 30% of its video subs on X1 by the end of the year. Comcast ended Q3 with about 22.58 million video subs.

Cavanagh noted that X1 will play a big role in the MSO’s goal to drive growth of video subs on an annualized basis.

“We have been showing progress quarter by quarter by quarter,” he said. “This quarter (Q4)… I think will be a solid one on subscriber metrics leading us into next year.”

Comcast is also trying to improve video metrics with slimmed down bundled, including Internet Plus and its newer offering, Stream TV, an IPTV offering targeted to broadband-only homes that features the major broadcast channels, HBO, a VOD library and access to a cloud DVR for $15 per month.

Comcast has launched Stream TV in Boston and Chicago, with an expansion to the rest of the MSO’s footprint expected early next year.

With respect to Stream TV, it’s “too early to have any real learnings,” Cavanagh said, noting that the idea to experiment with new products and expose them to a different market  segment, with the hope to “up-sell and migrate as time passes.”

Shaw Communications of Canada is bagging an original plan to develop an IPTV service to instead try out X1, Comcast’s IP-capable video platform that uses a cloud-based interface for set-tops and mobile devices.

Shaw revealed plans to move ahead on a trial of Comcast’s platform Thursday in its fiscal third quarter earnings statement, which also noted that the Canadian MSO is taking a $55 million write-down of IPTV assets following its decision to abandon the original plan. Shaw said that it started to deploy an end-to-end IPTV solution in 2013, but paused in late 2014 to conduct a review and to assess other options. 

“We are always exploring new ways to enhance our video experience and deliver next-generation services to our customers,” Shaw CEO Brad Shaw said, in a statement. “We are currently working with Comcast to begin a technical trial of their cloud-based X1 platform and be the first in Canada to capitalize on Comcast’s cloud technology. X1 offers customers a seamless experience across multiple screens and devices both in and out of the home.”

If Shaw -- which lost 24,524 cable video subs in its fiscal Q3, giving it 1.88 million -- decides to move forward with X1 on a commercial basis, it would mark a significant win for Comcast’s X1 licensing efforts, which were expected to pick up steam after Comcast walked away from its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable in April.

Before it tried to buy TWC, Comcast had seemed eager to license X1 to other operators, but those conversations appeared to slow after Comcast and Time Warner Cable announced the proposed merger. With TWC now out of the M&A mix at Comcast (Charter Communications is now trying to buy TWC), Comcast is expected to seek licencing deals that could help it drive more scale into the X1 platform and the devices that  power it.

A commercial deployment by Shaw would also serve as welcome news to RDK Management LLC, the joint venture of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global that is managing the Reference Design Kit (RDK), a preintegrated software stack for IP and hybrid QAM/IP devices. Comcast's X1 platform uses the RDK. 

Shaw, which also offers satellite TV services to about 851,569 subscribers, is the second MSO to publicize its interest in licensing X1.

Cox Communications has been kicking the tires on X1 as it pursues a next-generation “future-state” video project. Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Cox, said in an interview in April that the MSO has completed a successful technical lab trial with X1. A Cox spokesman said then that the next step would be to test X1 with Cox employees.

“We've also made very good progress from the technical trial [with X1] and have the platform up and working properly, so that has great promise,” Hart said at the time.. “We're also looking at two or three other platforms with some other providers in the industry.”

Shaw joins a growing list of Canadian MSOs that have scotched their original IPTV plans. In 2014, Cogeco was hit with an impairment of C$32.2 million tied to an alternative IPTV project that encountered “performance issues.” Cogeco abandoned that plan and instead moved forward on a deal with TiVo.

Comcast’s decision to walk away from its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable could reignite Comcast’s interest in licensing its X1 platform to other cable operators and multichannel video programming distributors.

Comcast has talked about plans to license X1 to other operators, but those conversations appeared to quiet down significantly after Comcast and Time Warner Cable announced their merger agreement about fourteen months ago.

If that deal went through, it was expected that all of the TWC systems that were to stay with Comcast would eventually migrate to X1, enabling Comcast to drive further scale of its IP-capable, cloud-based video platform and the boxes that power it.

Instead, Comcast will have to pursue other ways to expand the reach of X1 beyond its own footprint and recoup some of the investments it has made in creating the platform. Time Warner Cable is a backer of the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software stack that’s present in Comcast’s X1 boxes, but TWC has also been developing its own cloud-based interface for its RDK implementation.

Cox Communications is the only operator to acknowledge publicly that it is considering X1 as it looks at a variety of paths for its ongoing next-generation “future-state” video project.

Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Cox, said in an interview last week (more of the discussion with Hart will be featured in the May 5 issue of Multichannel News) that the MSO has completed a successful technical lab trial with X1. A Cox spokesman said the next step will be X1 testing with Cox employees.

“We've also made very good progress from the technical trial [with X1] and have the platform up and working properly, so that has great promise,” Hart said. “We're also looking at two or three other platforms with some other providers in the industry.”

According to the New York Post, the Federal Communications Commission wanted Comcast to drop NBCUniversal or its X1 pursuits in order to win approval of the TWC deal.

Comcast, though, is heavily invested in X1, and has been eager to accelerate deployment of the platform as it rolls out enhancements and new features on a regular basis. Last week, for example, Comcast introduced a version of the Xfinity TV app for the X1 service that runs on the new Apple Watch.

On the deployment end, Comcast has begun to lower the “upgrade fee” for X1 in markets such as Philadelphia, Jersey and Connecticut. Depending on the area, the original upgrade fee for X1 has been in the range of $49.99 to $99, but has recently been seen as low as $19.99. Lowering those fees would reduce some of the financial friction as Comcast looks to more rapidly migrate Comcast subs from its legacy video platform to X1.

Comcast has not  announced how many of its 22.38 million video customers are on X1, but did say in October  2014 that it had deployed more than 5 million boxes, and, before that, indicated that it is shipping about 20,000 X1 boxes per day. Based on that rate, Comcast should now have about 9 million X1 boxes deployed.