Cheddar Inc. is an American

live streaming Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming media, streaming of video or Digital audio, audio in real-time communication, real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as ''streaming'', the real-time nature ...

financial news network The Financial News Network (FNN) was an American financial and business news television network launched on November 30, 1981. The network aimed to broadcast programming nationwide, five days a week, for seven hours a day on 13 stations in an ...

founded by

Jon Steinberg Jon Steinberg is an American businessman, who serves as a chief executive officer of international multimedia company Future plc. In early 2016, he founded Cheddar Inc., a new media company covering tech news and culture, and served as its CEO.Busi ...

in the United States. Cheddar broadcasts live daily from the floor of the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

(NYSE),

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

, the

Flatiron Building The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a 22-story, steel-framed triangular building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick P. Dinke ...

in New York City, and the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

lawn and briefing room in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

covering new products, technologies, and services. Cheddar targets

millennials Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s a ...

by streaming one to two hours of live content from the NYSE trading floor daily, streaming live audio on

iHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast, radio streaming and Music Streaming platform owned by iHeartMedia. Founded in August 2008, iHeartRadio serves as the national umbrella brand for iHeart ...

, and distributing the videos on video platforms such as

Amazon Prime Amazon Prime (styled as prime) is a paid subscription service of Amazon which is available in many countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services inclu ...

, the Cheddar app,

Facebook Live Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of ...

Sling TV Sling TV is an American streaming television service operated by Sling TV LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dish Network. Unveiled on January 5, 2015, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor aim ...

Pluto TV Pluto TV is an American free ad-supported streaming television service owned and operated by the Paramount Streaming division of Paramount Global. Founded by Tom Ryan (business executive), Tom Ryan, Ilya Pozin and Nick Grouf in 2013 and based in ...

Haystack News Haystack News (formerly Haystack TV) is a free ad-supported streaming service for local, national and international news video available on smart TVs, over-the-top platforms and mobile apps. Haystack uses data from each user—such as location, ...

and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. It is also available in Canada via

RiverTV RiverTV is a Canadian OTT internet television service owned by VMedia that launched on June 4, 2020. RiverTV is a virtual multichannel video programming distributor ( vMVPD), primarily offering Canadian specialty channels and video on demand c ...

channel 25. According to Steinberg, Cheddar received 148 million views in August 2017 across all of its platforms. On Facebook, 60 percent of Cheddar's viewers are under the age of 35. Accordingly, the daily live shows have been described as "quasi-

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

for millennials". Reportage focuses on stocks and technology. The channel is ad-free; expected revenue comes from carriage agreements with streaming services. Advertising comprises either program underwriting or semi-weekly brand integration. Brand integration advertising costs $100,000 per year. Cheddar has two feeds, a paid-for and a free version. The paid feed broadcasts eight hours of programming a day, six of them live, and is available via Amazon Prime,

YouTube TV YouTube TV is an American Pay television, subscription Over-the-top media service, over-the-top streaming television service operated by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, which in turn is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., who announced YouTube TV ...

, and the Cheddar app. The free feed broadcasts three hours of new content daily and archived content is available through Facebook and over the air via its affiliated stations. In April 2017, the channel had 100,000 viewers. On April 30, 2019, it was announced that Cheddar agreed to be bought by the cable company

Altice USA Altice USA, Inc., commonly known as Altice, is an American telecommunications provider with headquarters in New York City, owned by the Franco-Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi. The company delivers pay television, Internet access, telephone se ...

for $200 million in cash. On December 28, 2023 it was announced that

sold Cheddar to media company Archetype for an undisclosed amount.

History

Formation

, formerly president of

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...

and CEO of '' Daily Mail North America'', conceived the concept after leaving the latter in 2015. He considered naming the company "Ticker" until ''

Bustle A bustle is a padded undergarment or wire frame used to add fullness, or support the drapery, at the back of women's dresses in the mid-to-late 19th century. Bustles are worn under the skirt in the back, just below the waist, to keep the skir ...

''s founder, Bryan Goldberg, came up with the name Cheddar. Steinberg founded Cheddar in early 2016 and hired Peter Gorenstein, a senior producer at

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

, as the channel's chief content officer in January 2016. In September 2017, Cheddar hired Anjali Kumar, former Warby Parker executive and Google lawyer, as its first general counsel and chief people officer. In the company's first financing round in January 2016, it raised nearly $3 million, primarily from

Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia social media and instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of the app are that pictures and messages, known as "snaps", are usually availa ...

and Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew, and additional funds from WGI Group, Homebrew,

Jerry Speyer Jerry I. Speyer (born June 23, 1940) is an American real estate developer. He is one of two founding partners of the New York real estate company Tishman Speyer, which controls Rockefeller Center. Speyer was featured in the Forbes 400 list in 2021 ...

, and David Fiszel.

Operating

Cheddar began streaming on April 11, 2016, on

with one hour of programming at 9:30 am. Cheddar initially streamed all videos for free, but in May 2016, the company launched a subscription

video-on-demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typical static broadcasting ...

service. Smaller clips continue to be released, but full-length videos are exclusive to subscribers. On May 23, 2016, SirusXM began carrying Cheddar. Cheddar raised $10 million in funding on September 6, 2016, all of which was an equity deal from

Lightspeed Venture Partners Lightspeed Venture Partners is a global venture capital firm focusing on seed stage, early stage investments and growth stage investments in the enterprise, fintech, consumer and healthcare sectors. Lightspeed has eleven offices globally and as o ...

, Comcast Ventures, and

Ribbit Capital Ribbit Capital (Ribbit) is an American investment firm based in San Francisco, California. The firm focuses on investments related to fintech. It is an early investor in Robinhood Markets and Bitcoin. Background. In 2012, Ribbit was founded ...

. Cheddar used the investments to increase programming and set up a new studio in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

, becoming the company's fifth studio. The channel teamed with ''

'' to launch its afternoon show ''Extra Sharp'' on May 18, 2016. Melissa Rosenthal, a former BuzzFeed executive, was hired in May 2016 as creative development and partnership executive. Five half-hour shows (''Wheels'' - automobiles, ''Points on Point'' - smart spending, ''Your Future Home'' - real estate, ''Your Cheddar'' - personal finance, and ''Cheddar Trading'' - roundtable discussion on trading) were developed by November 2016, when they were shopped to find underwriting. In September 2016,

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

made a deal with Cheddar to broadcast its daily coverage, with the stated purpose of giving the Twitter community a platform to watch and discuss the news live. In January 2017, '' Vanity Fairs ''Hive'' business news and

Condé Nast Entertainment Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE) is a production and distribution studio with film, television, social and online video, and virtual reality content. CNE is headquartered at 1 World Trade Center. Background Previously, Condé Nast (CN) magazin ...

partnered with Cheddar to create a live weekly series called ''VF Hive on Cheddar''.

Graydon Carter Edward Graydon Carter, Order of Canada, CM (born July 14, 1949) is a Canadian journalist who was the editor of ''Vanity Fair (magazine), Vanity Fair'' from 1992 until 2017. He also co-founded, with Kurt Andersen and Thomas L. Phillips, Jr., Tom P ...

, a ''Vanity Fair'' editor, called the series a "representation of how people are consuming more voraciously than ever." Propagate Content in March 2017 partnered with Cheddar to produce a weekly 45-minute show for international markets. Propagate also became Cheddar's international sales representative. The company purchased StockStream, a Twitch hosted crowd-sourcing investment decision website, from the creator Mike Roberts in July 2017. Also in 2017, Cheddar purchased Need2Know newsletter. On August 5, 2017, Cheddar opened its second New York studio at the

in Manhattan. The Flatiron studio was built for its ''Cheddar Life'' series. In April 2017, Cheddar began broadcasting on digital UHF stations in five markets and rents the broadcast spectrum from

DTV America Innovate Corp. (formerly known as HC2 Holdings, Inc. and Primus Telecommunications Group, Inc.) is an American public financial services company founded in 1994. History Beginning (1994–1997) Primus commenced operations in 1994 intent on b ...

Dunkin' Donuts DD IP Holder LLC, doing business as Dunkin', and originally Dunkin' Donuts, is an American multinational coffee and doughnut company, as well as a quick service restaurant. It was founded by Bill Rosenberg in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 19 ...

, a Cheddar advertiser, gave free digital antennas at events in the stations' markets to publicize the over the air launch. Cheddar announced $19 million in its third round of financing in May 2017, which was led by Raine Ventures along with investors:

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

, NYSE, Lorne Michael's

Broadway Video Broadway Video is an American multimedia entertainment studio founded by Lorne Michaels, creator of the sketch comedy TV series ''Saturday Night Live'' and producer of other television programs and movies. Broadway Video also held the rights to m ...

, and some existing investors. To date, the company has raised $32.1 million and has a valuation of $85 million as of June 2017. Cheddar also hired Ross Cooperman, former head of engineering at Knowme Systems, as its chief technology officer. Cheddar partnered with

Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the L ...

Fusion Media Group The Fusion Media Group (FMG; formerly Fusion Media Network) is a division of Univision Communications. The company was launched in April 2016 after Univision bought out Disney's stake in Fusion through the Fusion Media Network joint venture betwe ...

in June 2017 to air two hours on the latter's

Fusion TV Fusion TV was an American pay channel owned by Fusion Media Group, a multi-platform media company subsidiary of Univision Communications, which relied in part on the resources of its parent company's news division, Noticias Univision. In additi ...

cable television network every weekday afternoon, with the programming available for cable users on DISH,

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

AT&T U-Verse U-verse TV is an internet protocol television (IPTV) service operated by DirecTV. Launched on June 26, 2006, U-verse was originally a triple play package that included broadband Internet (now AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber), IP telephone (now AT& ...

, Verizon Fios, and

Charter Communications Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. With over 32 million customers in 41 states as of 2022, it is the ...

. Cheddar reported it was on 60 percent of

smart TV A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...

s throughout the U.S. In July 2017, Cheddar partnered with

Seeking Alpha Seeking Alpha is a crowd-sourced content service that publishes news on financial markets. It is accessible via a website and mobile app and offers both free and paid subscriptions. Independent contributors, mostly from the buy side, write almost ...

to produce an "Idea of the Month" segment. The partnership was extended in early 2018.

KXTV KXTV (channel 10) is a television station in Sacramento, California, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Broadway, just south of US 50 at the south edge of downtown Sacramento, and its tr ...

aired segments from Cheddar on July 27, 2017, during its morning and afternoon news programs as a test for a planned rollout throughout the

Tegna Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publi ...

TV station group. These segments were rolled out by August to seven News 12 Network cable channels, owned by Altice, then to a handful of additional Tegna stations and Tribune's

WPIX WPIX (channel 11) is a television station in New York City, serving as the ''de facto'' flagship of The CW Television Network. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, the station is operated by CW majority owner Nexstar Media Group under a local market ...

. These segments are featured under the "Cheddar Local" banner. On July 27, 2017, the channel was added to the

news aggregator app, which is on mobile and OTT platforms. In September 2017, Cheddar announced its deal with Layer3 TV, an IP-based

MVPD Multichannel television in the United States has been available since at least 1948. The United States is served by multichannel television through cable television systems, direct-broadcast satellite providers, and various other wireline video pr ...

, and planned to open a broadcast studio in the UK by 2018. Cheddar in January 2017 launched a 24-hour linear feed on

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle c ...

, the gaming and video platform owned by Amazon. Cheddar was one of two news channels on

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian J ...

OTT Internet TV

at its November 14, 2017, launch. In January 2018, Cheddar partnered with MightyHive to extend select client ad campaigns programmatically. In January 2020,

TiVo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fea ...

announced the addition of Cheddar to its new channel lineup.

Multichannel company

In March 2018, the company announced its plan to expand internationally and launch two channels, Cheddar Big News (CBN) and a channel on Snapchat Discover after securing its fourth investment round, raising $22 million. The funding round was led by Raine Ventures along with

Liberty Global Liberty Global Ltd. is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company domiciled in Bermuda, with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Holdings Limited (UK), Liberty Glo ...

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...

Antenna Group Antenna Group or ANT1 Group, is a media company in Greece and currently the largest Greek media company. It was established on 2 August 1989 by Minos Kyriakou. Today, his son, Theodore Kyriakou, heads up a media empire whose operations include ...

, 7 Global Capital, Dentsu Ventures,

Jeffrey Sprecher Jeffrey Craig Sprecher (, , born February 23, 1955) is an American businessman, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, and chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. Early life Sprecher was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the ...

, and

Kelly Loeffler Kelly Lynn Loeffler ( ; born November 27, 1970) is an American businesswoman and politician who has served as the 28th administrator of the Small Business Administration since February 20, 2025. A member of the Republican Party, she served as a ...

. As of this investment round, the company is valued at $160 million. Big Cheddar News is a general news streaming channel which launched on April 17. The Snapchat Discover channel, also targeted for an April debut, is a general and business news channel. In April 2018, Cheddar announced its plan to air its live linear network on

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

. The move comes after Cheddar's deal to bring its news channels to YouTube TV and a month after launching its

channel. In May 2018, Cheddar acquired

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2005), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Pa ...

's MTV Networks on Campus to air CheddarU, which streamed content from its flagship financial-news streaming service and segments from Cheddar Big News to 9 million students on more than 600 campuses. Qualifying universities could receive the service for free. CheddarU was part of the ChedNet division, which focused on installing more screens and broadcasting its service in gyms, hotels, airport lounges, restaurants, bars, among others. In June 2018, Cheddar added another distribution outlet via a carriage deal with virtual

fuboTV FuboTV, Inc., formerly known as the FaceBank Group, and its subsidiary FuboTV Media, Inc., which operates as FuboTV or Fubo, comprise an American over-the-top sports streaming television service that serves customers in Canada, Spain, and the US ...

, an OTT TV service focused on sports programming. GSTV, Gas Station TV, began running 20 second Cheddar segments in September 2018. Cheddar bought

RateMyProfessors.com Rate My Professors (RMP) is a review site founded in May 1999 by John Swapceinski, a software engineer from Menlo Park, California, which allows anyone to assign ratings to professors and campuses of American, Canadian, and United Kingdom instit ...

and its app in October 2018 from

. The same month, the company announced its programming will air for 30 minutes every weeknight on CUNY TV, the independent station by the

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

. In January 2019, Cheddar renamed their two channels ''Cheddar Business'' and ''Cheddar News'' and began hiring for a news room. On February 4, 2019, Cheddar launched the "Cheddar Nights" programming block, which airs acquired shows, including game show ''Out of Tune,'' ''Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch'' and ''

Nathan for You ''Nathan for You'' is an American satirical docu-reality comedy television series starring Canadian comedian Nathan Fielder. The series was created by Fielder and Michael Koman and premiered on February 28, 2013, on the American cable televisi ...

''. On April 30, 2019, Cheddar announced an agreement to be bought by cable company

for $200 million in cash; the purchase was made to bolster the latter's news output. The acquisition was completed on June 6, with Jon Steinberg becoming Altice News president overseeing Cheddar, News 12 Networks and i24 News. In December 2023,

sold Cheddar to the media company Archetype, which is owned by private equity firm Regent LP.

Channels

*Cheddar Business (January 2019 – June 2020) formerly Cheddar (April 2016—January 2019) financial news *Cheddar News (January 2019 – present) formerly Cheddar Big News (April 2018—January 2019) general news *Cheddar on Snapchat (April 2018—2019) financial and general news on

Discover * CheddarU (May 2018—2024) started with the purchase of MTV Networks on Campus and was part of the new ChedNet

Programs

*''Wake Up with Cheddar'' - (2019-2023) daily morning show featuring business and technology news anchored by

Baker Machado A baker is a tradesperson who baking, bakes and sometimes Sales, sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient histo ...

> *''Cheddar Life'' - a series featuring business and technology news while adding in lifestyle news (health, wellness, and fashion) * ''Closing Bell'' - a two-hour show * ''Extra Sharp'' (May 18-November 2016; suspended) – series produced in cooperation with ''

'', and based on its app, with initial shows hosted by Bustle Editor-In-Chief Kate Ward and contributor Erika Turner on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange *''VF Hive on Cheddar'' (February 19, 2017 – 2018) - streams on

of Cheddar and ''Vanity Fair'', Cheddar linear channel and

digital channel *''Cheddar Local'' (July 27, 2017—2023) 1 to 2 minute business news segments taped twice daily to be inserted into local news programs *''Cheddar NYC'' (October 2018—2019) half-hour weekdays news program on CUNY TV. Weather forecasts are provided by

The Weather Company The Weather Company LLC is a weather forecasting and information technology company that owns and operates weather.com (the website for The Weather Channel), and Weather Underground. From 2016 to 2023, The Weather Company was a subsidiary of the ...

through its

Local Now Local Now (stylized as "local now") is an American over-the-top internet television service owned by The Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. A spinoff of The Weather Channel, Local Now primarily provides a cyclic playlist of w ...

brand, as part of a content-sharing agreement between Cheddar and The Weather Company.

Over-the-air affiliates

From 2017 to 2019, Cheddar had a

brokered programming Brokered programming (also known as time-buy and blocktime) is a form of broadcast content in which the show's producer pays a radio or television station for air time, rather than exchanging programming for pay or the opportunity to play spot com ...

agreement with five stations owned by DTV America Corporation to carry the channel over-the-air. As of May 2019, that agreement has expired. As of 3 June 2020, the network has over 42 stations, all of which are owned by DTV America parent company

HC2 Holdings Innovate Corp. (formerly known as HC2 Holdings, Inc. and Primus Telecommunications Group, Inc.) is an American public financial services company founded in 1994. History Beginning (1994–1997) Primus commenced operations in 1994 intent on b ...

References

External links

* * {{Television news in the United States 2016 establishments in New York City Business-related television channels Internet television channels 24-hour television news channels in the United States Television channels and stations established in 2016 English-language television stations in the United States Mass media companies based in New York City Altice USA 2019 mergers and acquisitions 2023 mergers and acquisitions