Twitter and Bloomberg have a struck a deal to live-stream several of the media company’s television programs on the social network.
The partnership includes the streaming rights to three financial news shows, including Bloomberg West, What’d You Miss?, With All Due Respect, and the network’s daily stock market coverage.
The deal sees Twitter continue its aggressive expansion into live video on its flagship platform, having previously acquired the social media rights to a number of NFL Thursday Night Football games. Twitter also broadcast several ESPN-produced segments from the Wimbledon tennis championships earlier this month.
“Twitter is one of the fastest ways to find out what’s happening in global business and financial markets, and to engage in the live commentary about it,” said Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial officer. “Partnering with Bloomberg will give people on Twitter the best way to see live financial markets performance combined with the live commentary on the underlying drivers and implications.”
The partnership sees Twitter deviate from its focus on sports broadcasts to embrace its other biggest talking point: live news. Twitter recently changed its iOS App Store category from “social networking” to “news,” a clear sign that it was aware of the changing nature of its platform.
Unlike its scattered selection of NFL broadcasts, scheduled to commence in the fall, Twitter’s Bloomberg streams will be delivered several times per day, during each weekday. Aside from the Wall Street updates, the three Bloomberg shows that will be broadcast on Twitter include the network’s daily tech program Bloomberg West, hosted by Emily Chang. What’d You Miss? is the news broadcaster’s daily summary of the day’s important news from the global financial markets, hosted by Joe Weisenthal. Finally, With All Due Respect focuses on the election cycle (another major topic of discussion on Twitter), with analysis from political journalists Mark Halperin, and John Heilemann.
“By partnering with Twitter, viewers from all over the world will now be able to leverage a powerful, real-time platform to consume and react to the news, accelerating our position as a leader in global business video, and offering new and innovative opportunities for our marketing partners,” said Bloomberg Media CEO Justin B. Smith.
The venture sees Twitter emulate rival Facebook Live’s strategy of tapping media partners to bring their content to its burgeoning live-streaming feature. Facebook reportedly paid the likes of BuzzFeed and The New York Times upwards of $3 million dollars to broadcast on its social network. Details of Twitter’s Bloomberg streaming deal were not disclosed.
“The live streaming partnership between Twitter and Bloomberg demonstrates the increasing role that social platforms are playing in video — and why this is an increasing threat to TV,” Gareth Capon, CEO of Grabyo (an official Facebook live-streaming partner) told Digital Trends.
“Moreover, the combination of live-streaming and tweets means users can also follow the conversation on Twitter whilst watching the live show – combining a “second screen” experience into a single platform. An added benefit is the promise of global distribution to Twitter’s total audience of over 800 million people, and the potential for significant new reach and audience for Bloomberg, which means additional TV advertising dollars.”
