Business media startup Cheddar adds radio to its growing TV operation
Have cheese, will travel.
Media startup Cheddar has signed a deal to bring its business-focused live content to national radio, adding to the growing distribution of its content beyond its Facebook Live origins.
Cheddar will work with iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, TuneIn, Amazon Alexa, and Otto Radio. The deals vary by company and include a live simulcast on iHeartRadio and TuneIn, as well as shorter updates for SiriusXM.
The company, founded by Jon Steinberg in January 2016, started broadcasting just as Facebook begin to embrace live content. Since then, Cheddar has signed distribution deals with a variety of partners including SlingTV.
Adding radio is a logical step for the company, providing another way to reach new people with the same content it already creates.
"This puts us in every connected car in the United States. We are now like the cable news network legacy players with full audio simulcast. Except we are on all the top internet platforms for doing this. You can drive to work and listen to Cheddar," Steinberg said.
Cheddar is also working with Twitter on two live shows, and developing a late-night show with NBA player Andre Iguodala.
As Steinberg noted, offering audio versions of television isn't a particularly new phenomenon, but Cheddar is among a group of internet-native startups that are making content similar to legacy media companies for far less money. This allows them to offer that content to partners at a discount, as they do with internet TV companies such as SlingTV.
Cheddar's radio deals will be similar, with the company making money off branded content and getting a piece the money from regular ads.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
