STAMFORD, Conn.—While Charter has done much better than other major pay TV operators in retaining video subs, the company has announced a major shift in its video strategy that it hopes will help it thrive in a streaming, cord-cutting landscape.
Building on the announcement last year of a joint venture with Comcast to create the Xumo streaming platform, Charter is now planning to use Xumo as “our go-to-market platform for new video sales,” according to Chris Winfrey, president and CEO, Charter Communications.
Winfrey made the remarks in a conference call with analysts announcing Charters Q2 2023 results, which included the loss of 189,000 subs, a much better result than the 543,000 subs lost by Comcast.
The Comcast and Charter joint venture began offering Xumo-branded TVs this summer.
“We're excited for the upcoming release of the Xumo product, which I believe will be an industry-leading platform for customers to access all of their linear and DTC video content with unified search and discovery,” Winfrey said. “Together with our Spectrum TV app, the most viewed linear MVPD streaming service in the US, Xumo will be our go-to-market platform for new video sales. We're currently conducting field trials in the product, and we remain on track for deployment later this year.”
The move is clearly related to shifts in the video business towards streaming platforms like Roku and Apple TV. Like many operators, Charter has already begun offering video packages via streaming app rather than settop boxes and the move towards Xumo would accelerate that trend.
“Xumo…really is an extension of what we've been doing already,” Winfrey told analysts. “Two-thirds of our video sales today are without a set-top box, meaning they're going on to Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV or other platforms.”
“The concept around Xumo was to, through a joint venture with Comcast, have an ownership in an independent entity, which is Xumo that provides better functionality and exist for customers today where they can integrate all of their DTC SVOD and linear services in a single place with unified search and discovery with a voice remote,” he added later in the call. “And so that will be our platform of choice to deliver to our video subscriptions going forward. And ultimately, I expect us to provide that to some broadband customers over time as well.”
“That will be good for Xumo as an independent platform, but I also think it provides functionality to our connectivity customers and we can provide the level of video services to our customers through our connectivity packages,” he said.
