Charter, Comcast Align for Streaming Service

Charter Communications and Comcast Corporation have established a 50-50 joint venture to develop a next-generation streaming service that will be accessible on a range of devices and smart TVs.

The joint venture is licensing Flex, Comcast’s aggregated streaming platform and hardware. Comcast will also contribute the retail business for XClass TVs and the AVOD service Xumo. Charter will make an initial contribution of $900 million, funded over multiple years.

The new service will deliver the most-watched streaming apps, including Xumo and Peacock. Charter will begin offering the 4K streaming TV devices and voice remotes beginning in 2023, while Comcast will continue to offer the Flex platform to its customers. The XClass TVs will be available through national retail partners and potentially direct from Comcast and Charter.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Charter to bring this platform and its award-winning experience to millions of new customers,” said Dave Watson, CEO of Comcast Cable. “These products are all designed to make search and discovery across live, on-demand and streaming video seamless and incredibly simple for consumers. This partnership uniquely brings together more than a decade of technical innovation, national scale and new opportunities to monetize our combined investment.”

“Our new venture will bring a full-featured operating platform, new devices and smart TVs with a robust app store providing a more streamlined and aggregated experience for the customer,” said Tom Rutledge, Charter’s chairman and CEO. “As the video landscape continues to evolve, this venture will increase retail consumer options, compete at scale with established national platforms and join our existing lineup of options for the Spectrum TV App available on most customer-owned streaming devices.”