Categories: OLD Media Moves

Business news service Cheddar goes behind paywall

A new subscription video-on-demand service for business news service Cheddar priced at $6.99 a month, powered by IAC/InterActiveCorp’s video platform Vimeo, will debut Monday, reports Shalini Ramachandran of The Wall Street Journal.

Ramachandran writes, “Mr. Steinberg said he doesn’t think the price is unreasonable and is hoping people and companies will pay up for Cheddar’s business content. The idea is that smaller clips will appear for free on Facebook but full-length CEO interviews, for instance, would be exclusive for subscribers.

“Mr. Steinberg says he would like to sign up ‘thousands and thousands’ of subscribers in the next few months and will be ‘very happy’ if subscribers reach the tens of thousands. He’s aiming to keep a lean staff; the company employs eight people currently.

“‘I’m not getting into a cost structure where this business has to do $100 million a year to be viable,’ Mr. Steinberg said. He has raised $3.1 million to date from a variety of investors, including Lightspeed’s Jeremy Liew, Homebrew and Vivi Nevo.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.