Charter offers free Disney+ and other streaming to stop cord-cutting

As cord-cutting continues to rise, one cable company is partnering with streaming platforms in an effort to retain customers.

Charter Communications (CHTR) announced Wednesday that its new multiyear distribution deal with NBCUniversal — parent of NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, SYFY and USA Network — will give subscribers free access to Peacock (CMCSA), NBCUniversal’s streaming platform.

“With the renewal of our long-standing partnership with NBCUniversal, we now have agreements with every major programmer to create better flexibility and greater value for our customers, including DTC (direct-to-consumer) streaming applications with their Spectrum service TV, at no additional cost,” said Tom Montemagno, executive vice president of programming acquisitions for Charter Communications, in a press release.

The cable company already offers access to Disney (early)+, ESPN+, Paramount (PARA)+, AMC (AMCX)+, BET+, ViX, Max (WBD), and Discovery+ for its Spectrum TV Select video customers.

The deal comes as cable providers and cable channel owners grapple with how to deal with the explosive growth of streaming.

This week, telecommunications giant AT&T (T) said it is selling its remaining stake in DirecTV as it appears to be shifting its focus back to 5G and fiber wireless connectivity offerings.

For its part, DirecTV has announced that it will acquisition of EchoStar’s satellite television businessincluding Dish TV (SATS).

“DirectTV operates in a highly competitive video distribution industry,” DirecTV Chief Executive Bill Morrow said in a statement. “With greater scale, we expect that a combination of DirecTV and Dish can better work with programmers to realize our vision for the future of TV, which is to aggregate, curate and distribute content tailored to customers’ interests and to be better . positioned to realize operational efficiencies while creating value for customers through additional investment.”

DirecTV and Dish have lost a combined 63 percent of their satellite customers since 2016, the company said.

Disney, Fox Entertainmentand The discovery of Warner Brosall cut jobs this summer due to downsizing in the media industry. David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, consider splitting the company’s streaming and studio assets from its cable network businesses.

Despite operating one of the few profitable streaming platformsWarner Bros. Discovery has been dragged down by its struggling linear TV assets. The company’s shares have fallen 70% since the merger that created it in 2022.

Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery also recently released a batch which combines all of its streaming platforms — Disney+, Hulu, and Max — under one monthly subscription plan starting at $16.99 per month.

Disney is also reportedly working on giving its streaming platform a facelift that will make it look like a combination of regular TV and Netflix to increase the audience.

— Rocio Fabbro contributed to this article.