Twitter has hinted at plans to eventually air live video 24/7 via both its website and app. That’s coming from the mouth of its CFO and COO Anthony Noto, who discussed plans for an always-on Twitter with BuzzFeed News on Wednesday morning, ahead of the company’s earnings report.
Refusing to offer a timetable for the feature, he did acknowledge that the micro-blogging platform wants to build on the more than 800 hours of live shows it aired in the first three months of 2017, including live sports, election coverage and programming from Bloomberg, BuzzFeed and the like.
“We will definitely have 24/7 video content on Twitter,” 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.”
“We have a really big audience when there’s a pay-per-view UFC match,” he added. “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.”
He then explained why the kind of video that Twitter plans to host would make sense:
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 percent focused on it when it’s not of interest. I did that myself during the debates.
They’re calling video that’s not always looking for your full attention “ambient digital video.”
We believe our audience growth has been driven by a combo of organic growth, product improvements, and marketing. #TWTR
— Twitter Investor Relations (@TwitterIR) April 26, 2017
Although Twitter lost the rights to stream the NFL package of Thursday night games to Amazon, the company sees live video as a pillar of its growth and revenue strategy because it can monetize live content with 15- and 30-second unskippable video ads.
Here are some viewership numbers:
- Twitter’s NFL package averaged 3.5 million unique viewers
- Twitter’s Oscars pre and post shows brought in a combined 6.4 million
- Twitter’s live inauguration day coverage from PBS netted some 8.6 million unique viewers
Live video content can be found in Twitter’s Explore tab.
The company will be holding its first ever NewFronts event next week to to attract more big name advertisers to the platform and unveil a few new shows. We don’t know exactly what’s coming yet, but Noto “a lot” is in the pipeline.
Source: BuzzFeed News