Twitter unveils 16 streaming partners for its live video service, including BuzzFeed, The Verge, Viacom, WNBA, MLBAM, PGA, Bloomberg, and Live Nation
Last year: NFL. This year: Bloomberg, the WNBA, Live Nation and our friends at The Verge. — Yesterday, Twitter announced it was building …
Context & Ripple Effects
This announcement is the moment Twitter's live video strategy stops being a single marquee rights win and becomes a roster play. After proving the model with the NFL, Twitter spent mid-2016 shopping for more sports inventory — it was reported to be talking to the NBA, MLS and Turner about buying streaming rights [[a:871290]] — and the WNBA, MLBAM and PGA deals on today's list are that pipeline converting into signed partners.
The news side was set up just a day earlier, when Twitter announced a 24/7 ad-supported, Twitter-exclusive live news channel with Bloomberg Media [[a:918550]], building on the revenue-sharing arrangement under which Bloomberg already livestreams three daily shows on the platform [[a:871360]]. BuzzFeed, The Verge, Viacom and Live Nation round out a slate that spans news, sports, entertainment and events — the breadth is the point.
First-order effects
- The 16 named partners — BuzzFeed, The Verge, Viacom, WNBA, MLBAM, PGA, Bloomberg, Live Nation among them — immediately gain a second-screen live distribution channel with no production exclusivity cost, while Twitter's ad sales team gets live video inventory well beyond its NFL schedule.
Second-order effects
- Rights holders now have a credible non-exclusive outlet alongside traditional broadcasters, which strengthens their hand in negotiations with bigger-spending rivals like Facebook, YouTube and Amazon that are chasing the same live inventory.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and the corpus shows it does, with Twitter announcing 30 new or renewed video deals in 2018 [[a:929092]] and further deals with Univision, WSJ and Time in 2019 [[a:941133]] — live content licensing becomes an annualized, renewals-driven business for social platforms rather than a series of one-off stunts, shifting bargaining power toward whoever owns the audience graph.
The trend: Twitter is converting one-off marquee rights wins like the NFL into an annually renewed slate of live streaming partners across news, sports and entertainment.