Looks like we might be looking at non stop live broadcast on Twitter.
Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto told Buzzfeed news that the company plans to “air live video 24 hours a day, 7 days a week inside its apps and desktop site, building on the 800+ hours it aired in the first three months of 2017.” Dubbed as Twitter TV or Twitter Network, you could soon be seeing an always-on version of Twitter’s current live video offering of sports, news and entertainment programming.
Noto said during the interview “Our goal is to be a dependable place so that when you want to see what’s happening, you think of going to Twitter.” It’s going to take some time to reach 24 hour rolling, but Noto notes that there are much more programming in the works. “We’re working on many, many things,” Noto said. “There’s a lot in the pipeline.” Although, there is no timeline revealed.
Twitter is autoplaying videos inside its desktop site and airing them live from its relatively new Explore tab. According to numbers reported by Buzzfeed, these has racked up quite a sizeable viewership. Twitter’s NFL package last year, where Twitter had the rights to stream Thursday night games online, averaged 3.5 million unique viewers and its Oscars pre and post shows brought in a combined 6.4 million. Meanwhile, its live inauguration day coverage from PBS netted some 8.6 million unique viewers. BuzzFeed also partnered with Twitter on an Election Day show that drew about 7.7 million unique viewers.
Twitter has since lost their rights to stream the package of Thursday night games. However, Twitter is still pushing strong in this arena for growth and revenue strategy. Noto explained that live video is driving up conversation volume on the platform and it’s helping Twitter offer the type of 15- and 30-second unskippable video ads for which advertisers typically write big checks to TV networks.
Next week, Twitter will pitch advertisers at its first ever NewFronts event. The company will introduce a handful of new shows in hopes of landing some big upfront ad buys from top-tier sponsors. Noto declined to go into detail about what’s coming.
“It was instrumental [in generating additional interest],” Noto said of the NFL deal, declining to comment on the premium Amazon seems to have paid for it. “It’s a really high-profile brand and one that has really high expectations for product quality. It caused people to come and see if we could deliver.”
From Twitter’s perspective, if they can achieve in being the always on channel, it’s a win. “We think that is a great way to have the programming carried along with you during your day,” Noto said. “Focus in on it when you hear something that’s of interest, but then maybe not be 100% focused on it when it’s not of interest. I did that myself during the debates.”
That kind of video falls into a category called “ambient digital video,” which Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners believes exploits a gap left by digital video services like Netflix and HBO Now that are always looking for your full attention. Liew told BuzzFeed News that Twitter may have hit on a potentially big opportunity here. “If Twitter can own this use case, it may be a complement to the Netflix and Amazon use cases,” he said.
