Charter Communications has struck another carriage deal with a major entertainment company, and it seems to be somewhat similar to Charter’s deal with Disney last year.
Per a release, Charter’s deal with TelevisaUnivision will include access to a new ad-supported tier of Vix, the company’s streaming service, for no extra charge. Customers who receive TelevisaUnivision’s channels on their Charter packages will be eligible for the Vix access. Additionally, Spectrum will be launching a Spanish-language streaming video package that includes TelevisaUnivision’s networks.
ViX’s “Premium with Ads” offering will give viewers access to the entire ViX Premium content offering, including exclusive original series, novelas, comedies, movies, thousands of live exclusive soccer matches and tens of thousands of hours of library content with a moderate advertising load. The combination of ViX’s premium streaming programming with TelevisaUnivision’s market leading linear channels will create an unmatched Spanish-language content offering available to Spectrum customers at no incremental cost.
In addition to giving Spectrum customers access to the forthcoming ad-supported premium version of ViX, the agreement enhances Charter’s flexibility to offer its video customers high-value linear and over-the-top TV packages. TelevisaUnivision’s U.S. channels will be included as an integral launch partner in a new, innovative, low-cost Spanish-language internet-delivered video package that Spectrum will launch in the coming months.
Back in September, Disney networks went dark on Charter due to a carriage dispute between the two parties. Despite saber-rattling from both sides, a deal got done after a week and a half. It restored many Disney networks to Charter’s packages, but several ended up getting dropped. Charter also received the ability to offer Disney’s streaming services to customers at retail rates and began to offer subscriptions to ESPN+ and Disney+ to certain subscribers for no extra charge.
For Charter, this shows that the company’s strategy during the Disney negotiations will be implemented with other media companies going forward. Paramount and Comcast should take note of this when their carriage deals with Charter are running down. TelevisionUnivision also ended up okay here, as there wasn’t any real chatter about networks getting pulled or going dark and negotiations seemed to go rather smoothly in public.
