Monday, May 1, 2017

Twitter Teams With Bloomberg For Streaming News


(Reuters) -- Twitter Inc is partnering with Bloomberg Media for a round-the-clock streaming television news service on the social networking platform, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The channel, which is yet to be named and is expected to begin operations this fall, would be announced Monday, WSJ said.

Twitter's user growth has stalled in the past few quarters and the company has been trying to convince advertisers that it will strengthen its user base.

As part of its efforts, it has updated its product offerings including live video broadcasts from its app and launched new features to attract users.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in an internal memo last October one of the company's missions was defined as being the "people's news network".

Twitter has made a push into news and sports on mobile devices last year and this foray could pique the interest of a media company as an acquirer, analysts have said.

The Wall Street Journal reports Twitter has already been streaming live programming for specific events. The company broadcast 800 hours of programming in the first quarter of 2017, up from 600 hours in the fourth quarter last year. But this would mark the first continuous video feed to be hosted on the platform.

Its most notable broadcast arrangement thus far was its deal with the National Football League to broadcast Thursday night games last season. Amazon has since acquired the rights to live stream football games this season. Twitter had previously partnered with Bloomberg for coverage of the presidential debates last year.

“We really think we can reach audiences that are not paying for TV and are watching television on the go and we think Bloomberg is the perfect partner for us to start with,” said Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial and operating officer.

Both sides declined to discuss the financial aspects of the arrangement in detail, but said the service would be ad-supported and that Bloomberg would be entirely in control of programming the feed.

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