Cable company Altice USA is reportedly considering a potential sale of Cheddar News, the network once named “CNBC for millennials,” less than five years after buying the company.
Altice USA has hired Goldman Sachs to help explore strategic alternatives for Cheddar News, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. They warned that Altice was still weighing its options and could decide against selling. Representatives for Altice USA and Goldman declined to comment.
The sale would be an undoing of Altice USA’s big bet on the streaming news company. Altice, which is controlled by French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, Pay 200 million dollars for Cheddar in 2019. The deal was seen as a way to elevate the company’s news division, which also includes News 12 Networks. Cheddar has presented himself as the future of financial news, providing interviews with CEOs, newsmakers and journalists from the NYSE floor.
Cheddar cheese doesn’t work like a traditional cable company. John Steinberg, founder of the network and former president of BuzzFeed, has struck deals to distribute it across a wide range of platforms. Among them: a gas station (which, yes, plays at the pump) and the MTV campus network (which cheddar Buyer in 2018).
However, some of these agreements are not as profitable as cable distribution deals. Instead of making cable TV providers like Comcast pay each of its Cheddar viewers, an industry practice known as carriage fee, the channel relies mostly on advertising revenue. This is a tough business model for media companies competing with tech giants like Meta and TikTok for share of the digital advertising market. (Actually, Cheddar has recently Layoffs.)
Shares of Altice USA are down about 70 percent over the past year. The company reported, which provides broadband service across 22 states Decrease in profits and revenues In the first quarter, revenue from news and advertising alone fell 14 percent. Altice is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings next week.