Skip to main content

YouTube to offer a live 360-degree look at the Republican and Democratic conventions

A smartphone displaying YouTube on its screen as it lays on top of a laptop's keyboard.
Both the Republic National Convention and Democratic National Convention are right around the corner, and while the important news from each will circulate in a number of ways, that isn’t enough for hardcore news junkies.

YouTube has a solution to this problem, as it announced in a blog post on Thursday that it will offer live-streaming coverage of both conventions, just as it did in 2012. Of course, a lot has changed in the four years since — both in terms of technology and in the prominence of YouTube personalities — so the company has a few tricks up its sleeve.

Related Videos

Creators like The Young Turks, Complex News, Seeker Daily, Ingrid Nilsen, Mark Watson, and Julie Borowski will be offering coverage at both conventions, in addition to several more traditional news organizations. Jump VR cameras will be used to offer a 360-degree look at the action, while mobile live-streaming will offer viewers a better idea of what it’s like to be there on the ground.

While YouTube is the official streaming partner of the conventions, it isn’t the only service offering coverage. Twitter plans to offer live-streaming video of both conventions, and BitTorrent, Inc. announced on Wednesday that it will launch its new live news network BitTorrent News just in time to cover the Republican National Convention.

The Republican National Convention kicks off in Cleveland, Ohio next week on July 18, while the Democratic National Convention starts July 25 in Philadelphia. For easy access, YouTube is offering dedicated channels for both the Republican and Democratic conventions.

The “gavel-to-gavel coverage” YouTube promised in its blog post isn’t all it plans to offer either. Real Time with Bill Maher will also be producing two specials per convention, and all of them will stream live on YouTube. The two specials for the RNC will air on July 20 and 21, while the DNC specials will air on July 27 and 28.

Editors' Recommendations

NFL Sunday Ticket: how to watch on YouTube and YouTube TV
NFL Sunday Ticket info for YouTube TV as seen on a phone.

Now that Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs have been crowned the winners of Super Bowl LVII and closed out the 2022-23 season, it's time to turn our attention to next season. Because there are going to be some massive changes. First, there's no more Tom Brady. And second is that NFL Sunday Ticket will no longer be on DirecTV and is making the leap to YouTube and YouTube TV.

That's a big deal for a couple of reasons. It'll make NFL Sunday Ticket — which lets you watch pretty much any NFL game you want every week — available to far more people because it no longer will be shackled to satellite TV. Dish TV has slowly been losing subscribers and was down to 7.6 million as of October 2022. Meanwhile, YouTube TV last reported more than 5 million subscribers in mid-2022. (The company doesn't regularly give updates on subscription totals.) And then there's YouTube proper, whose availability and popularity are hard to quantify in the same terms as traditional television numbers because it's just there.

Read more
NFL Sunday Ticket may get typical YouTube community features
NFL on YouTube TV.

The 2022-23 NFL season is about to wrap up with the Super Bowl, and there are many months until the next installment. That also means there's quite some time before we see NFL Sunday Ticket make the leap to Google-owned YouTube and YouTube TV.

But we're already starting to glean a few more details as to the future of NFL Sunday Ticket, which until this year has lived solely on DirecTV.

Read more
Celebrate our 1,000,000 YouTube subscriber milestone with us and win!
YouTube Subscriber Giveaway

Digital Trends 1,000,000 YouTube Subscriber Giveaway!

We did it! On November 27, 2022, the Digital Trends YouTube channel reached a major milestone: 1 million subscribers! We’ve been counting down for weeks, and now that the moment has finally arrived, we’re ready to celebrate with those who helped us get here (you!) by giving away more than $4,500 in prizes!

Read more