Media startup Cheddar launches its streaming TV channel in Europe with French startup Molotov, which won't be charged a licensing fee
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
Molotov built its base as a free aggregator — after its $23M raise it offered 70 free French channels with cloud bookmarking, making it the natural landing spot for a US channel seeking French viewers without its own app. Cheddar, launched by ex-Buzzfeed president Jon Steinberg, had already tried charging: a premium $6.99/month tier powered by Vimeo.
The zero-fee deal is the tell: Cheddar is buying distribution with reach instead of revenue, the same logic behind its later decision to abandon its paid subscription model entirely. The partnership also set up Molotov's own exit arc, which ended years later in fuboTV's $190M acquisition.
First-order effects
- Cheddar gets instant European distribution through an established French app without building local infrastructure or negotiating per-subscriber carriage fees.
- Molotov adds a millennial-focused business-news channel to its lineup at zero licensing cost, differentiating its free offering against paywalled US news brands entering France.
Second-order effects
- Waiving the fee pressures other US news streamers eyeing Europe to compete on free carriage terms, shifting bargaining power toward aggregators like Molotov who control the audience pipe.
- The move foreshadows Cheddar's strategic pivot: once reach matters more than subscription revenue, ad-supported scale becomes the product, and investors price it accordingly — as the $160M Series D valuation later reflected.
Third-order effects
- If free-carriage deals become the norm, streaming news consolidates around aggregator platforms rather than standalone channel apps — the endpoint Molotov itself reached when fuboTV bought it, validating aggregation as the durable layer.
- Licensing fees stop being the default monetization for niche channels crossing borders, forcing news startups to fund expansion through advertising scale or eventual platform exit rather than direct subscriber payments.
The trend: Streaming news startups are scaling internationally by trading carriage fees for aggregator distribution, a path that ends either in ad-supported scale or absorption by the platforms they distribute through.