DENVER — Comcast and Charter Communications arrived here at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo this week intent on selling their video platform joint venture, Xumo, to the rest of the U.S. cable industry.
And they already have a taker in Middletown, New York-based Mediacom Communications, which Marcien Jenckes, president of the Xumo JV said Tuesday at an SCTE show-floor presentation, said will start distributing the new Xumo Stream Box to its customers.
Jenckes offered little details about Mediacom's deployment — like when it’ll start — but he did say: “This is just the beginning with more to come. We’d like to be working with a lot more operators, and we’ll be doing that in the coming months and years."
UPDATED: The Xumo JV released an official statement two days after Jenckes' disclosure, indicating that the Stream Box will be distributed to Mediacom Xtream internet customers "in the coming months." The release didn't say if Mediacom would charge them for the device, and if so, how much.
"Through our partnership with Xumo, we will be able to significantly enhance the value of our broadband services by combining our market-leading speeds with a new world-class streaming experience," said Tapan Dandnaik, Mediacom's senior VP of operations, product strategy and customer experience. "Xumo Stram Box is incredibly versatile and consumer-friendly, and we are excited to be among the first companies to bring this cutting-edge device to market."
The Mediacom announcement comes two weeks after the JV formally introduced the Xumo Stream Box player, which in addition to playing the cable companies’ core pay TV apps — Charter's Spectrum app and the Xfinity Stream TV app — supports all major SVOD services and around 200 apps in all.
Last week, Light Reading reported that Xumo was in talks with a number of tier 2 and 3 cable operators about offering the Xumo platform to their customers under ad-revenue sharing terms. The NCTC cooperative, which represents hundreds of smaller cable operators, reportedly expressed interest in the JV's proposition.
The National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC) and other smaller cable interests are looking for ways to provide video to their now mostly broadband-oriented constituency, with rising content costs sapping their profitability and interest in linear video in recent years.
For its part, Charter said the OTT platform — which is powered by Comcast voice-remote technology — had already replaced its linear set-tops as its “go-to” video platform.
“It’s the primary video box that we are deploying today,” Charter CEO Christopher Winfrey said during Tuesday’s Expo opening session. “It’s been hard for us lately to be excited about our video product. This is about as excited as we've been in 15 years."
