Charter's OTT-friendliness, which has been one of its major selling points in Washington for a proposed Time Warner Cable merger, just got friendlier.
Charter president Tom Rutledge said Monday (Oct. 12) that its customers would be able to use Roku devices to access TV content on any Roku-connected screen in the house using the Spectrum TV app, which means the device will offer cable channels alongside streamed over-the-top (OTT) online content on those sets.
"We congratulate Charter on embracing consumers’ desire to stream the video they want,” said Andrew Ferrone, VP of pay TV at Roku, in announcing the agreement to make the Spectrum TV app a channel on the Roku platform.
The announcement also dovetails with cable operator arguments to the FCC that the marketplace is wedding traditional and new online video content.
“We will continue to add greater functionality to the channel on Roku devices, including On Demand, and plan to make Spectrum TV available on additional consumer electronic set-top boxes and screens," said Rutledge in a statement.
Charter said Spectrum TV will be available on Roku streaming players, its Streaming Stick and Roku TVs. The Spectrum TV app is also available on iOS and Android devices.
According to Parks Associates figures, Roku was the clear leader in streaming devices in 2014 with 29% of U.S. sales.
Jeff Baumgartner contributed to this report.
