Charter’s crusade to bundle as many streaming services as possible for its Spectrum TV subscribers has hit 30 Rock.
The telecom giant has now inked deals with every major content provider, and its latest deal with NBCUniversal includes Peacock’s ad-supported tier at no additional cost to Spectrum TV Select subscribers. Spectrum subscribers now receive Disney+, ESPN+, Max, Paramount+, Peacock, and several smaller direct-to-consumer products included in the traditional pay-TV bundle.
Per Todd Spangler’s report in Variety on Tuesday, Charter is paying the content providers a “per-subscriber wholesale fee” to include the services, meaning that while it may appear consumers are receiving these streaming services for free, Charter may raise prices to offset some of the cost.
In any case, the new deal ensures that Spectrum TV Select subscribers have access to the plethora of exclusive live sports rights that Peacock now owns. Those include Big Ten football and basketball, Big East basketball, select Notre Dame football games, Premier League soccer, and more.
While Charter’s position as the largest pay-TV distributor in the country certainly helps when it comes to striking favorable deals with the likes of NBC, these sorts of arrangements will likely become more commonplace on other distributors as well. It is typical for major distributors to include language in carriage agreements that requires content providers to offer the same terms to them as they offer to other distributors.
Just recently, after a multi-week carriage dispute between DirecTV and Disney carried into last month, the satellite provider secured the same ability to offer Disney+ and ESPN+ to its subscribers as Charter did when it struck a new deal with Disney last year.
The trend is a positive one for sports fans who have been punished by the Balkanization of live sports rights in recent years. With games appearing on more networks and streaming services than ever before, and fans bearing the brunt of that cost, any sort of re-consolidation in the industry is welcome.
[Variety]
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.