Cheddar 2.0
“Cheddar is Everywhere” has always been a core focus for our network. Today, we announce Cheddar 2.0 to adapt to what has been a continually evolving streaming ecosystem in the roughly four years since our first broadcast from an iPhone on Facebook Live.
Cheddar began as a business news network in 2016, and we followed two years later with a second headline news network. Today we are unifying these two networks into one Cheddar with a new tagline: “News Worth Investing In.” The network will stay true to its business focus on technology, media, and innovation and also include the top stories of the day that are worth “investing” your time in. We also believe that the unification into one network will simplify the confusion between the two Cheddars and allow us to put our full effort, more wood behind fewer arrows, into building a single widely and consistently available live news network.
The new Cheddar is live every weekday at 7am for 10 full hours, and our full feed goes 24/7. We’re also debuting a new evening show called “News Wrap” to capture evening viewing. We will continue to deliver and expand our unique shows like Wake Up with Cheddar, chedHER, Who Knew?, Cheddar Innovates, and more.
The caliber of guest bookings continues to be a hallmark of Cheddar, as we focus on bringing you the voices that matter in business, culture and politics. Recently, we’ve brought you interviews from: Melinda Gates, Ivanka Trump, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sir Richard Branson, Cory Booker, Charles Schwab, Shaquille O’Neil, and many more.
With this relaunch also comes a new set of modernized graphics and a unification of distribution. Cheddar is available on the leading pay TV systems: Optimum, Suddenlink, YouTube TV, Hulu, Spectrum, Sling and all other vMVPDs.
It is also available on all of the leading free TV platforms: Pluto, Roku Channel, Amazon Fire News, and over the air on 40 broadcast stations reaching 10 million homes.
We even have a campus network of 1,400 screens on 400+ US campuses in dining halls, gyms, and student unions. And, you can continue to catch up on the top of most gas pumps via GSTV, or on smart home devices like Alexa and Google Home.
Looking ahead, our vision remains the same but COVID has required us to rethink and challenge ourselves on how we bring that vision to life: how we broadcast, adapt to the ad market, and lean into changing consumer streaming habits. Regretfully, like almost every media company, we had a layoff, which meant saying goodbye to some of the anchors, producers and professionals that got us to where we are today, and those decisions were very difficult.
We’ve also witnessed increased viewership and herculean efforts by our team to create a completely “broadcast from home” infrastructure. And after several months of broadcasting from our anchors’ homes, starting today, we are returning a small number of anchors to our studios, with great care around COVID related protections and social distancing. I’m eager for the day when guests can join them in studio.
The teamwork and can-do attitude over the last few weeks has been inspiring and we are approaching our future with a learner’s mindset while asking ourselves not only how we build Cheddar for today, but how we build it for the future.
So, today, join us as we embark on this second “startup” phase of Cheddar.
