Recently, On The Clock host Tony Russo sat down with Rehan Choudhry, founder of Chptr, to discuss the company’s growth over the past six years and the acceleration it has experienced in the last 24 months.
The conversation focuses on Chptr’s expanding funeral home partnerships, its role in modernizing obituary distribution through television and digital channels, and its broader approach to solving operational challenges for funeral directors.
Watch the full interview: On The Clock
Chptr is currently announcing new funeral home partnerships at a fast pace, with many partners actively sharing their adoption as part of their own business evolution. According to Choudhry, this reflects that funeral homes view Chptr as an additive partner that helps them better serve families while staying aligned with meaningful technology trends.
Chptr enables funeral homes to broadcast obituaries on local television networks in a timely and guaranteed way. This removes traditional delays associated with newspaper publishing and allows communities to learn about passings while watching local news. The result is increased awareness, stronger community connection, and clearer direction for families seeking service information.
Chptr is now under contract with more than 75 percent of television stations in the United States and continues to expand into additional media platforms. The goal is to give funeral homes a single, seamless way to communicate with their communities across all local channels without requiring additional time, investment, or technical effort.
In addition to television, platforms like YouTube are being used to extend the reach of obituary content. By publishing broadcast segments and optimizing them for search, funeral homes can improve their online visibility and ensure they remain the primary source of accurate information when individuals search for obituaries.
A central theme in the discussion is that funeral directors need more time and more families to serve, not more software to manage. Chptr’s approach is to provide fully managed, tech-enabled services. For example, its slideshow offering handles the entire creation process, allowing funeral directors to simply input information while the final product is completed and delivered for them.
The interview highlights a shift in how obituary information is created, distributed, and accessed. Traditional methods such as newspapers often introduced delays and higher costs, while newer channels allow for faster and more direct communication with local communities.
At the same time, the conversation emphasizes the importance of maintaining content ownership with funeral homes and ensuring that information provided by families remains accurate and easily accessible through trusted sources.
Looking ahead, Choudhry anticipates that television-based obituary distribution will become standard across the industry, driven by both cost efficiency and changing consumer behavior. He also points to broader efforts, including a forthcoming national awareness campaign, aimed at highlighting the role funeral directors play in their communities.