After announcing its deployment on Comcast’s X1 in January, streaming news programmer Cheddar has launched its full integration into the advanced video platform.
In what Cheddar is calling “version 2.0” of the news service on X1, viewers will now be able to access the Cheddar live feed by simply saying “Cheddar” into the their voice remotes.
And within X1’s on-demand ecosystem, users will have access to the full range of Cheddar on-demand content.
Related: Cheddar Streams Onto Comcast's X1 Set-Tops
“Since Cheddar isn’t on the linear program guide, so it’s more of Netflix kind of integration,” said Daniel Schneider, VP of business development for Cheddar. “But this was always the vision. We wanted to launch [on X1] first. Then we iterated.”
Comcast ended the second quarter with north of 22.1 million video subscribers, more than 60% of them using X1, so full actualization of Cheddar’s wares is a key step for the start-up news service.
As of now, Cheddar has distribution deals with all of the top virtual MVPDs, as well as the Roku Channel and Pluto TV. But having only very recently signed deals with linear operators such as WOW and the National Cable Television Cooperatie (NCTC), the Comcast deal represents Cheddar’s biggest infiltration into the traditional pay TV ecosystem to date.
“We want to be everywhere,” Schneider said. “That’s the strategy we’re pursuing.”
