Comcast to stitch free Xumo channels into X1 guide

WESTMINSTER, Colo. – Comcast is preparing to weave in several free, ad-supported television (FAST) streaming channels into the set-top box guide of X1, the operator's flagship pay-TV platform.

Comcast will soon add a variety of free-channels from Xumo, the Comcast-Charter national streaming joint venture, Colin Petrie-Norris, Xumo's chief revenue and platform officer, said here today at the Stream TV show.

Xumo-run FAST channels will be added to the X1 guide sometime "this summer," he said.

Comcast has already integrated the Xumo app into X1, but this will be the first time that individual Xumo FAST channels will be integrated inside the X1 set-top guide.

Xumo FAST channels have already been integrated into other Comcast platforms, including the Xfinity Stream app, Xfinity Flex, a streaming platform offered for no added fee to broadband-only customers, and Now TV, a recently launched $20 per month pay-TV service that's also targeted to Comcast's broadband-only customers.

A Comcast official said the Xumo channels being integrated into the X1 guide will mirror the Xumo channels that are currently woven into Comcast's Xfinity Stream app. Nineteen Xumo-branded channels and the NBC News Now FAST channels will launch first later this summer, followed by the Sky News FAST channel.

Adding FAST channels into pay-TV lineups is becoming a broader video industry trend as service providers seek out new ways to expand and add variance to the content they are providing.

In February, Sling TV, the Dish Network-owned virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD), did something similar with the launch of Freestream, an offering that started off with more than 200 free streaming channels.

But Petrie-Norris also acknowledged that the integration of a wave of FAST channels basically expands and enhances what consumers get today with traditional pay-TV. But it also fits in with the way many consumers are used to accessing content.

"What is old is new again," he said. "Consumers know how a guide works."

The integration of FAST channels "complements the [pay-TV] experience very nicely," Petrie-Norris added.

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— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading