Putting its lost deal to live stream NFL games recently behind, Twitter unveiled 16 new streaming video partnerships, led by BuzzFeed, Vox Media, Viacom, the WNBA, and the PGA.
The new partnerships came on the heels of Twitter’s streaming news deal with Bloomberg announced earlier in the day. After announcing a better than expected performance in its quarterly earnings report, the Jack Dorsey’s company is doubling down on its live video efforts to turnaround its growth trajectory. In words of the CEO, their goal is to be “the first place that people hear about what matters.”
To get into the specifics, the new partnership with BuzzFeed is for a morning news and current events show, called MorningFeed. Twitter is also partnering with Vox Media’s technology website The Verge on a weekly live streaming program reviewing new tech gadgets, called Circuit Breaker.
The WNBA will live stream a weekly regular-season game for 20 weeks this year, and again in 2018 and 2019. In addition to the weekly Major League Baseball game that already streams on Twitter, the MLB will air a weekly, three-hour show featuring highlights from the past week.
Twitter also announced that an exclusive new partnership with Viacom that will include live streams of award shows such as the MTV Movie & TV Awards as well as the pop culture network’s annual Video Music Awards. Besides, a partnership with Live Nation will grant the micro-blogging site exclusive rights to livestream videos of various concerts. Artists that will board the social networking platform’s live streaming bandwagon with this announcement include Train, Zac Brown Band, and Marian Hill.
In the sports arena, the NFL will extend its live streaming relationship with Twitter, and it will now include exclusive daily programming. Also, a new Stadium network will cover college sports 24/7. The PGA Tour already live streams on Twitter, and it now says this will include 360-degree video from the 17th hole during the Players Championship.
Twitter made the announcements as part of The NewFronts, an annual series of events and presentations from digital media companies featuring pitches aimed at both content makers and advertisers.