BitTorrent Appoints Former CNN Producer To News Director
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, (July 08, 2016)
Former CNN news producer Harrison Bohrman will step in as BitTorrent’s first news director, the company said Thursday.
Bohrman will build a team of journalists from the ground up, leading the development, planning and production for BitTorrent News, a live-streaming TV news network.
In June, BitTorrent announced it would expand its live-streaming service by adding a news channel, BitTorrent Live, which will host the channel, “BitTorrent News.”
“I love anytime there’s breaking news and you get a Twitter tweet, you click the tweet, and you can be watching live coverage,” Bohrman told Media Daily News. “That’s what we want to deliver to our audience, on the Internet, streaming live news.”
Bohrman calls the opportunity to rock the news world a “gift,” given a “blank slate” by VP of Live Eric Schwartz to create the next news channel, especially as mobile becomes the new media for longer-form news consumption, rather than quick bits and bytes.
“We don’t need to hit a commercial break every two to three minutes, keeping news stories and segments brief,” he said, acknowledging the segments will have brand sponsors.
Most recently, Bohrman held the position of senior development producer at Vice’s television network, Viceland. He also spent five years covering presidential elections and breaking news stories as a writer and producer at CNN.
BitTorrent is changing its tune from years past. In June, the company announced it will bring a new app to the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV allowing users to stream a variety of videos and music, mostly from independent and generally unknown artists and filmmakers. It doesn’t provide access to illegal content available on various torrent sites, but rather on-demand streaming content that’s perfectly legal.
The news channel will initially become available to stream on Apple TV, moving eventually to iOS- and Android-enabled devices and apps.
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