Cheddar News furloughs workers days after being sold by Altice USA: report

Cheddar News, a financially focused channel that focuses on the millennial market, has reportedly let go a number of staff a few days post being sold by Altice USA, the cable firm. In a staff memo referred to by the New York Times, Cheddar News leadership explained, "This move came earlier than we'd hoped, but was dictated by unexpected behind-the-scenes and market forces that called for quick changes to our business approach." The specific number of dismissed employees is still unknown, and new proprietors are media firm Archetype, owner of Defense News and Army Times. Altice USA, trailing behind Cox, Charter and Comcast as the country’s fourth biggest cable provider, has offloaded Cheddar, anticipated to have 130 employees. The exact terms of the deal remain unspecified. The Post has tried to get a response to this development from Cheddar, Archetype and its parent organization: California-based investment firm Regent. Altice USA, the American division of the European telecom corporation, and parent of Optimum (formerly Cablevision, owned by James Dolan), purchased Cheddar for $200 million in 2019, a platform hailed as the “millennial CNBC". As reported by the Times in July, Altice USA recruited Goldman Sachs to look into the possibility of selling Cheddar News. Prior to this news, Altice USA had already let go several well-known Cheddar show hosts, reflecting the wider difficulties encountered by digital media companies in generating income from a dwindling ad market. Established in 2016 as a fresh cable news platform, Cheddar's business model was to generate profit exclusively from ads, unlike traditional channels that charge cable providers a carriage fee. Jon Steinberg, the channel's founder following a term as BuzzFeed president, had Cheddar streaming at petrol station pump screens as part of his distribution strategy.