Twitter has crafted new content deals with NBCUniversal and ESPN that the social platform says will extend the reach of those partners’ original shows. The company is also expanding its existing relationship with Viacom with offerings like Comedy Central’s Creator’s Room, BET Breaks and MTV News.
Video views on Twitter have nearly doubled in the past year, the company said during its Digital Content NewFronts event this week.
“Where we first start is, we look at the conversation that’s already happening on the platform. The goal is to actually marry the organic conversation that’s happening on the platform with the content that they’re talking about,” Kay Madati, Global VP & Head of Content Partnerships, says in this interview with Beet.TV. “The marriage of those two things deliver quality content for our audiences and real distribution and engagement.”
NBCU will be sharing live video and clips from properties including NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo, as TechCrunch reports.
Twitter has been working with NBC for many years. The new expansion gives it the opportunity to now work with seven different brands inside the organization.
“Part of what I think the value that we provide for our content partners is that we end up being an extension of their reach,” Madati says. “The ability for a producer like NBC or the Ellen show to be able to reach our engaged audience on our platform.”
Linking content with social conversations and tying in advertisers provides opportunities for all types of publishers, according to Madati. “We’re not trying to dis-intermediate their businesses. We’re here to extend the ability to tie the conversation that’s happening around their content on our platform and allow us all to take that out to market.”
Twitter is “excited to see what we can do with Telemundo around approaching Hispanic conversations on the platform, we’re excited to see what we can do with E Networks, NBC news.”
The deals stem from the core understanding that “eyeballs in this new world of multi-platform, multi-device consumption are going everywhere,” Madati adds.
He believes that one of the best things about Twitter is that communities and movements that use the platform to disseminate their messages are self-organized. “When I think about the violence in Florida with guns and how a couple of students got together, joined our platform and a month, two months later they have millions of people listening to them, that in its essence is what Twitter is fantastic at.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Digital Content NewFronts 2018. The series a co-presentation of Beet.TV and the IAB. Please see additional videos from the series on this page.
