An internet-TV upstart catering to budget-conscious lovers of family content is adding some of the country’s most well-known entertainment networks to its portfolio.

Frndly TV, founded two years ago by former Dish Network Corp. executives, said Wednesday it had signed a deal with A+E Networks to carry seven of its networks—including A&E, Lifetime and the History Channel—starting Nov. 18.

As...

An internet-TV upstart catering to budget-conscious lovers of family content is adding some of the country’s most well-known entertainment networks to its portfolio.

Frndly TV, founded two years ago by former Dish Network Corp. executives, said Wednesday it had signed a deal with A+E Networks to carry seven of its networks—including A&E, Lifetime and the History Channel—starting Nov. 18.

As a result of the agreement, Frndly TV will offer 30 live TV channels, adding to its current bundle that already includes the Hallmark Channel and the Weather Channel. The company said it would raise the basic monthly subscription price to $6.99 from $5.99. Frndly TV’s other subscription tiers will also increase.

Frndly TV launched, as many so-called skinny bundles—TV-over-internet services designed to lure cord-cutters with smaller lineups of channels for a significantly lower price than cable TV—kept increasing the range of their programming and price. At some point, there was hardly a difference between skinny bundles and a traditional pay-TV package.

“The whole concept of affordability was starting to get lost,” said Andy Karofsky, Frndly TV’s chief operating officer and one of its co-founders. He said that they—including Mike McClain, Bassil El-Khatib and Michael McKenna —felt there were plenty of family-focused channels on cable that had a massive audience and could be packaged into a no-frills skinny bundle.

Mario Lopez in Lifetime’s ‘Holiday in Santa Fe.’ Some of Frndly TV’s channels, including Lifetime, tend to see viewership rise during the holiday season.

Photo: Lifetime

The two most popular internet-TV bundles in the U.S.— Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube TV and Walt Disney Co.-controlled Hulu + Live TV—have more than 75 channels and cost $65 a month. Philo, which like Frndly TV focuses on lifestyle and family-friendly content and eschews sports networks, offers over 60 channels for $25 a month.

The absence of sports, news and major entertainment networks, like WarnerMedia’s TBS or NBCUniversal’s USA Network, allows the service to keep its subscription price on the lower end, Mr. Karofsky said.

“What Frndly TV delivers is very focused—it’s not trying to be all things for all people,” said Paul Erickson, a senior analyst at Parks Associates, a research firm.

Star Christian Aherns, a 40-year-old from Orange County, Calif., said she started subscribing to Frndly TV in September to catch up on “Chesapeake Shores,” a Hallmark Channel drama series. Ms. Aherns said she canceled her pay-TV package a few years ago and that other streaming services she subscribes to, including Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video, don’t carry the series.

Frndly TV said it had more than 500,000 subscribers as of October and reached profitability in the second year. Frndly TV’s subscriber base is much smaller than that of YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, each with about 3.7 million subscribers as of the second quarter of 2021, according to MoffettNathanson, a research firm—but on par with Direct TV Stream, which had over 480,000 subscribers.

The market for streaming television has grown evermore competitive in recent years, prompting some entrants to walk away. Last year, Sony Corp.

closed its PlayStation Vue streaming television service because of intensifying competition. At the end of this month, AT&T Inc. will discontinue AT&T Watch TV, a low-cost skinny bundle that, like Frndly TV, offered a relatively small lineup of channels.

Frndly TV also faces competition from traditional streaming services that focus heavily on lifestyle programming. Discovery+ launched earlier this year and costs $4.99 a month with ads and $6.99 without. The Discovery Inc. -owned service features content from channels including TLC, Food Network, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

Some of Frndly TV’s channels—including Hallmark Channel, GAC Family and Lifetime—tend to see viewership spikes during the holiday season. As a result, some customers who join ahead of the holidays may quickly drop their subscriptions in January, Mr. Karofsky said, likening it to competitors that see subscriber surges around sporting events. He said such subscribers do tend to come back the following year.

Bill Abbott,

the former CEO of the Hallmark Channel’s parent, now leads GAC Media LLC, the company behind two newly rebranded networks acquired earlier this year. Mr. Abbott said that shortly after the acquisition, one of his first calls was to Frndly TV. The service started offering GAC’s channels in October.

“We’re bringing family content to a market that’s predominantly not family in terms of entertainment. We, GAC, have a unique point of difference, as does Frndly TV,” Mr. Abbott said. “It was a no-brainer for us.”

Media mogul Byron Allen, who owns The Weather Channel, Recipe.TV and Local Now, all available on Frndly TV, said the service’s price point is likely a big subscriber draw.

“People just don’t want to be paying as much as they’ve been paying for the content,” Mr. Allen said. “I think price point matters.”

Write to Lillian Rizzo at Lillian.Rizzo@wsj.com