Since 2017, Comcast has been offering a service called the Xfinity Flex. Available free of charge to Xfinity customers. Flex works a lot like such vMVPDs as YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV—it provides access to streaming services and “skinny bundles” that cord-cutters get, without necessarily requiring them to actually get rid of their Comcast service.

It’s all part of Comcast’s stated desire to meet customers where they are and to get customers to still pay Comcast for some services, such as the Internet, even if they’re not still paying for cable.

Now, one of Comcast’s competitors is planning a similar product.

According to a report Friday by Fierce Video, Charter Communications is planning to offer an “IP video aggregation platform complete with new hardware.” The announcement came from Charter’s CFO, Chris Winfrey, at a Morgan Stanley investor conference that was held virtually this week.

“So, we’ll move with the marketplace, is what I’m saying. We’ll make sure that we’re in a position to continue to have a competitive video product,” Winfrey said, per the report. 

It’s not clear what Charter’s timing is for the rollout of the new product. Charter owns Spectrum, which in some parts of the country was formerly known as Time Warner Cable. 

Throughout the year, Charter has been bucking the trend in regards to most of the nation’s pay-TV providers losing subscribers every quarter. 

While the company did lose subscribers in the first three months of the year, in the second quarter of 2020, Charter was the only major cable company to gain subscribers, adding 102,000 residential video customers, which the company attributed in part to an offer of free service after the start of the pandemic, after which several of those who took the offer stayed on as paying customers. 

In the third quarter, Charter added another 67,000 pay-TV subscribers, making it one of only two of the major cable providers to add customers in the third quarter (Atlantic Broadband added about 5,542 customers.) 

As of the end of the third quarter, per Leichtman Research Group, Charter had the second-most cable subscribers in the United States, with about 16.2 million, which placed it not far behind Comcast with just over 20 million. However, Comcast lost 273,000 pay-TV customers in the quarter, while Charter gained. 

On the broadband side, the two large cable providers are even closer, also per Leictman. As of the end of the third quarter, Comcast had just over 30 million broadband customers, while Charter had 28.6 million. The third-largest company, Cox, was far behind with 5,330,000. 

However, Comcast added more broadband subscribers in the third quarter, 633,000, than Charter’s number of 537,000. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.