Twitter plans to broadcast live videos all day, every day
Twitter wants to air more live videos on its platform, and it wants to air them all day every day. In an interview with Buzzfeed News, the company’s COO and CFO Anthony Noto said Twitter plans to show live sports, news and entertainment videos in its apps and desktop site 24/7. It recently lost the right to broadcast NFL games to Amazon, but it’s apparently “working on many, many things” to make its vision a reality even without Thursday night football in its repertoire.
“We will definitely have 24/7 content on Twitter,” Noto told Buzzfeed. “Our goal is to be a dependable place so that when you want to see what’s happening, you think of going to Twitter.” He also revealed that showing live videos helps boost conversation on the platform and gives the company a new source of profit: 15 to 30 seconds of unskippable ads, much like TV commercials. It helps that (unlike Netflix programming) you don’t always have to give them your undivided attention — you can just let them auto-play in the background.
The Twitter exec said:
“We think that is a great way to have the programming carried along with you during your day. 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.”
Despite losing NFL to Amazon, that deal was instrumental in getting more companies interested in airing videos on the platform. They include both premium and rougher non-premium shows that Twitter needs to keep live videos running all day. It will take some time for the company to make this plan a reality, though, and one of things it still has to do is figure out is how to patch the hole the NFL left behind. Based on what Noto told the publication, there’s a chance you’ll be able to watch mixed martial arts on Twitter’s apps and website in the future:
“We have a really big audience when there’s a pay per view UFC match. Should we provide that content to the audience on Twitter that’s not watching it, but might like to after seeing tweets about it? That’s something we’d consider.”
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