Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on June 11 that “threads reached 100 million sign ups over the weekend. That's mostly organic demand and we haven't even turned on many promotions yet. Can't believe it's only been 5 days!”

The growth in users is faster than recent notable tech launches like ChatGPS, which took two months to reach the 100 million mark after its debut earlier this year. Prior to the Threads launch, ChatGPS had the fastest app take-up in history. 

As of 12 p.m. on July 11, Quiver Quantitative estimated that there were about 105 million users. 

In addition a growing number of journalists have joined the platform. 

By comparison Twitter has about 353.9 million active users annually and 237.8M active users daily, the Evening Standard reports.

But the platform has been plagued by problems since the $44 billion Elon Musk acquisition that angered users and advertisers. A blog post in May regarding a Pew Research Center survey found that a “majority of Americans who have used Twitter in the past year report taking a break from the platform during that time, and a quarter say they are not likely to use it a year from now.” The Pew Research Center survey was conducted about five months after Musk acquired the site. 

MENLO PARK, Calif.—As expected, Meta has launched a new social media platform called Threads that will directly compete with Twitter. 

The new app, built by the Instagram teams at Meta, allows users to log in using their Instagram account. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length.

The launch comes at a time when Twitter has been under fire from users, advertisers and regulators for tech outages, unpopular changes in the way the platform works and concerns by advertisers that their marketing campaigns will be associated with misinformation and objectionable content. 

While some have called the new product a Twitter-killer, the launch will, at minimum, will produce the kind of intense competition in the social media space not seen in years. 

Unlike other Twitter-like platforms that have struggled to gain traction, Meta's new Threads platform would complement Meta’s Facebook and Instagram social media platforms and provide Meta with the ability to promote Threads to the billions of accounts currently using Facebook and Instagram.

To capitalize on that, Threads is very closely tied to Instagram. Users must have an Instagram to signup and the Threads user name is their Instagram handle. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that Threads achieved 10 million signups within seven hours of its launch. 

Meta began exploring the idea of launching a Twitter competitor last fall following problems at Twitter in the wake of Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition. 

Since then other social media platforms competing with Twitter have reported upticks in usage but none have come close to challenging Twitter’s reach of about 450 million users. 

Media researcher and financial analyst Brian Wieser, CFA and founder of Madison and Wall has argued that Meta's market power could allow it to succeed where others have failed.  

“Twitter’s self-imploding antics of the Elon Musk era and the failure of upstarts to capitalize on the situation should mean there is an opportunity for someone to capture significant consumer engagement and advertiser budgets from Twitter,” Wieser noted in a July 5 post. 

“While trust in Meta as a protector of data may be poor and while there are many, many reasons to have antipathy towards the parent company for consumers and advertisers alike, if anyone could take an existing base of producers of content to catalyze usage of such a product, Meta is very well-positioned,” Wieser said. 

One key issue will be addressing advertiser concerns about having their marketing campaigns associated with the objectionable misinformation and racist material that can be found on Twitter. 

If both Twitter under its new CEO Linda Yaccarino and Meta's new Threads platform can overcome those problems, Wieser argues that "this won’t necessarily be a zero-sum game: it’s very possible that a successful Threads could then lead to a vibrant and competitive sector for micro-blogging as a result.”

Others see Threads as a potential Twitter-killer. In an email to TV Tech, Luke Lintz, CEO of the digital marketing and social media company HighKey Enterprises argued that “"In the hyper competitive market of social media, Meta's launch of Threads could be the beginning of the end for Twitter. Not only will the new microblogging platform look and feel nearly identical to Twitter, it will be seamlessly connected to Instagram, which has more than 2.3 billion users and is growing.”

As previously reported, “[t]his could spell bad news for Twitter, which only has 450 million users and has lost more than 32 million users since Elon Musk bought it in 2022,” Lintz argued. “In March, Musk said revenue at Twitter had fallen by 50% over the past two years and it's not clear how it intends to bring those advertisers back.” 

In the announcement launching Threads, Meta said that "Instagram is where billions of people around the world connect over photos and videos. Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas. Just like on Instagram, with Threads you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests – including the people you follow on Instagram and beyond. And you can use our existing suite of safety and user controls."

As Twitter faces growing complaints from users and advertisers about problems on the social media platform, Meta has decided to jump into the space with a new competitor called Threads. 

Meta hasn't officially announced the product but the app is available for pre-order at the Apple Store, where it is being billed by Meta as a place “where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”

The launch would complement Meta’s Facebook and Instagram social media platforms and provide Meta with the ability to promote Threads to the billions of accounts currently using Facebook and Instagram.

Meta began exploring the idea of launching a Twitter competitor last fall following problems at Twitter in the wake of Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition. 

Since then other social media platforms competing with Twitter have reported upticks in usage but none have come close to challenging Twitter’s reach of about 450 million users. 

“Twitter’s self-imploding antics of the Elon Musk era and the failure of upstarts to capitalize on the situation should mean there is an opportunity for someone to capture significant consumer engagement and advertiser budgets from Twitter,” noted the influential media researcher and financial analyst Brian Wieser, CFA and founder of Madison and Wall. “But can Meta do it? I think it’s very plausible.”

“While trust in Meta as a protector of data may be poor and while there are many, many reasons to have antipathy towards the parent company for consumers and advertisers alike, if anyone could take an existing base of producers of content to catalyze usage of such a product, Meta is very well-positioned,” Wieser wrote in a July 5 post, adding that Threads’ chances of success increase if it can offer advertisers a safe platform for their marketing.  “[C]onsumers are more likely to use a platform they trust and advertisers are more likely to worry less about whether their sponsorships will be associated with problematic content.”

Wieser stressed that while Meta’s Threads could capture budgets from Twitter, it is also possible that Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino could manage to "rebuild Twitter without as much involvement from Musk.  If that were to occur, this won’t necessarily be a zero-sum game: it’s very possible that a successful Threads could then lead to a vibrant and competitive sector for micro-blogging as a result.”

Others see Threads as a potential Twitter-killer. In an email to TV Tech, Luke Lintz, CEO of the digital marketing and social media company HighKey Enterprises argued that “"In the hyper competitive market of social media, Meta's launch of Threads could be the beginning of the end for Twitter. Not only will the new microblogging platform look and feel nearly identical to Twitter, it will be seamlessly connected to Instagram, which has more than 2.3 billion users and is growing.”

“This could spell bad news for Twitter, which only has 450 million users and has lost more than 32 million users since Elon Musk bought it in 2022,” Lintz argued. “In addition to this, the number of active users on Twitter is dropping. A new Pew Research report recently found that the most active Twitter users are posting 25% less per month following the acquisition.”

“If that’s not enough, Threads will also have the upper hand when it comes to content moderation standards, making it more appealing to advertisers who have pulled millions of dollars from Twitter after Musk gutted the firm’s content moderation team,” wrote Lintz. “In March, Musk said revenue at Twitter had fallen by 50% over the past two years and it's not clear how it intends to bring those advertisers back.”

Cord cutting has reached record levels as more viewers decide that on-demand streaming video is what they want to spend their time and money on. Pundits have been warning of the death of “traditional TV” (aka cable, broadcast and satellite) for years. 

And yet, as was proven by last night’s disastrous Twitter experience when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tried to break with tradition and announce his candidacy for President on a little known and little used audio platform, sometimes traditional TV is the only way to go. 

As most of you know by now, the launch announcement on Twitter Space did not go well with constant crashes and glitches that caused the event to be delayed by almost a half hour. When the announcement finally came, it generally followed the prepared script but whatever the now Presidential candidate said was overwhelmed by media coverage of the technical problems (even from Republican-leaning Fox News).

And this was just audio. I don’t want to even think about what would have happened if they had tried to include video (and that was just talking heads).

Color us surprised. Anyone who thought this was going to go well hasn’t been following the news lately. The event was proof positive that not only has Twitter suffered under the auspices of a billionaire who decided to clean house of the social media giants’ technical staff, it also proved that when it comes to an event that can set the tone for your candidacy (and one of the few that said candidate has full control of), sometimes your best friend is traditional media.

In this case, it wasn't the message that made news, it was the medium. 

Broadcasters (and cable operators as well) are required by law to provide a dependable signal to viewers. Broadcasters, in particular, have a crucial responsibility to their communities to keep citizens informed, especially in times of emergencies—Ford’s announcement this week that it would reverse its decision to eliminate AM radio in its cars was a glaring example of the importance of that responsibility. 

Keeping the transmitters on (or the satellite or fiber links properly maintained) are a vital part of broadcasters’ commitment to their communities and to the nation. Unfortunately the field of broadcast engineering is facing a talent crisis that has been building for years, with more technicians choosing to go IT/IP than RF, understandable when you look at the going salaries.

It’s been said many times but we’ll repeat it again: when it comes to live, nothing beats broadcasts’ one-to-many technology vs. IP’s one-to-one connection every time. 

Combined with the recent YouTube TV debacle, which caused many basketball fans to miss the final moments of the Celtics-Heat NBA playoff game, last night’s Twitter disaster is just the latest reminder that when you’re planning for what is perhaps the biggest event of your life (or career), nothing beats good ‘ole dependable traditional TV. 

A new study by Wettfreunde.net of over 375,000 tweets  indicates that Twitter users were more positive than negative in their reactions to HBO’s “House of the Dragon” and Prime Video’s “The Rings of Power” in the weeks following their high-profile premieres. 

Notably, however, less than half of the tweets about the shows were positive.  

The Wettfreunde.net researchers found that for the “House of the Dragon”, 35.3% of the tweets were positive, 17.7 % were negative and 47% neutral. 

Prime Video’s “The Rings of Power” got a slightly more positive reaction with 47.3% of the tweets positive, 19.9 % were negative and 32.8% neutral.

For the “House of Dragon,” the most mentioned actor from the series was Matt Smith (portraying Daemon Targaryen), with Smith mentioned in 42.5% of the tweets that mentioned actors.

Milly Alcock (portraying young Rhaenyra Targaryen) and Emily Carrey (portraying young Alicent Hightower) were second and third most mentioned actors, respectively, with 19.5% and 9.8% of the tweets mentioning actors.  

The most mentioned character from the series so far has been Rhaenyra Targaryen, with 23.6% of the tweets discussing new characters mentioning Princess Rhaenyra.

Prince Daemon Targaryen and King Viserys Targaryen have been second and third most mentioned characters, respectively, with 21.3% and 9.1% tweets.

For “The Rings of Power”, the most mentioned actor from the series is Morfydd Clark (portraying Galadriel) with Clark mentioned in 30.7% of the tweets mentioning actors.

Lenny Henry (portraying Sadoc Burrows) and Sophia Nomvete (portraying Princess Disa) were second and third most mentioned actors, respectively, with 21% and 7.5% tweets mentioning actors. 

Most mentioned character from the series so far has been Galadriel with 30.1% of the tweets discussing new characters mentioning Galadriel.

Princess Disa and Elrond were second and third most mentioned characters, respectively, with 16.7% & 11.1% tweets including them.

SAN FRANCISCO—As expected, Twitter has filed a lawsuit again Elon Musk in Delaware Court of Chancery, seeking to force him to go ahead with the “binding merger agreement,” the two parties signed in April when Musk agreed to acquire the Twitter for $44 billion. 

Twitter’s stock quickly declined after the deal was announced and in recent weeks Musk raised a number of concerns about the deal, particularly complaining about the issue of fake accounts or bots that increased Twitter traffic.  

Last week Musk’s lawyers filed a letter with the Securities & Exchange Commission arguing that “Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement,” including Twitter’s failure to provide “information necessary to `make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform’”

Twitter’s lawsuit follows through on a promise made by the chairman of its board last week when Musk backed out of the deal. 

On July 8, Twitter chairman Bret Taylor tweeted that “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”

The lawsuit filed on July 12th, complains that “In April 2022, Elon Musk entered into a binding merger agreement with Twitter, promising to use his best efforts to get the deal done. Now, less than three months later, Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests. Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away. This repudiation follows a long list of material contractual breaches by Musk that have cast a pall over Twitter and its business. Twitter brings this action to enjoin Musk from further breaches, to compel Musk to fulfill his legal obligations, and to compel consummation of the merger upon satisfaction of the few outstanding conditions."

The suit also contends that declines in Musk’s Tesla stock were a key motive for him to try to wiggle out of the agreement and that Musk was merely using the issue of the fake accounts as an excuse to preserve his wealth. 

The full complaint is available here. 

 SAN FRANCISCO—After Elon Musk sent a letter to the Securities and  Exchange Commission “terminating” the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on July 8, Twitter’s chairman responded with a tweet saying the company plans to sue Musk, setting up what may become a lengthy legal battle over the affair. 

Musk announced plans to acquire Twitter for $44 billion in April but since that time tensions have grown between Twitter and Musk amid growing signs that Musk was looking for a way out of the deal. 

Elon Musk’s lawyers sent a letter to the Securities & Exchange Commission on Friday, July 8, saying that “Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect (as that term is defined in the Merger Agreement).”

The letter from Mike Ringler at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP on behalf of Musk’s X Holdings, complained that “[fo]or nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to `make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform’” and that “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information.”

Under the proposed merger, Musk would have to pay Twitter $1 billion if he backs out of the deal but Twitter seems intent on suing Musk to force the deal to be completed. 

In a tweet, Twitter chairman Bret Taylor said: “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”

Twitter’s stock has declined from a peak of $51.70 on April 25 to $33.79 at 11:30 a.m. ET on July 11. 

 WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Federal Trade Commission has fined Twitter for deceptively using account security data for targeted advertising and for violating a 2011 FTC order that explicitly prohibited the company from misrepresenting its privacy and security practices. Under the proposed order, Twitter must pay a $150 million penalty and is banned from profiting from its deceptively collected data.

The FTC reported that Twitter asked users to give their phone numbers and email addresses to protect their accounts. Then, Twitter profited by allowing advertisers to use this data to target specific users. 

Under the proposed settlement, which must be approved by a federal court, Twitter did not admit wrongdoing but agreed to pay the fine and address a variety of problems with the way they handled user data. 

“As the complaint notes, Twitter obtained data from users on the pretext of harnessing it for security purposes but then ended up also using the data to target users with ads," said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. "This practice affected more than 140 million Twitter users, while boosting Twitter’s primary source of revenue.”

According to a complaint filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the FTC, Twitter in 2013 began asking users to provide either a phone number or email address to improve account security. 

From 2014 to 2019, more than 140 million Twitter users provided their phone numbers or email addresses after the company told them this information would help secure their accounts, according to the complaint. 

Twitter, however, failed to mention that it also would be used for targeted advertising, the FTC alleged. Twitter used the phone numbers and email addresses to allow advertisers to target specific ads to specific consumers by matching the information with data they already had or obtained from data brokers, according to the FTC complaint.

Twitter’s deceptive use of users’ phone numbers and email addresses for targeted advertising also violated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield agreements, which required participating companies to follow certain privacy principles in order to legally transfer data from EU countries and Switzerland, the FTC said. 

The Commission alleged that Twitter’s deceptive use of user email addresses and phone numbers violated the FTC Act and the 2011 Commission order, which stemmed from FTC allegations that the company deceived consumers and put their privacy at risk by failing to safeguard their personal information, resulting in two data breaches. The previous order prohibited Twitter from misrepresenting the extent to which the company maintains and protects the security, privacy, confidentiality, or integrity of any nonpublic consumer information, the FTC said. 

“The Department of Justice is committed to protecting the privacy of consumers’ sensitive data,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. “The $150 million penalty reflects the seriousness of the allegations against Twitter, and the substantial new compliance measures to be imposed as a result of today’s proposed settlement will help prevent further misleading tactics that threaten users’ privacy.” 

“Consumers who share their private information have a right to know if that information is being used to help advertisers target customers,” said U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds for the Northern District of California. “Social media companies that are not honest with consumers about how their personal information is being used will be held accountable.”

In addition to the $150 million penalty, other provisions of the proposed order would:

• Prohibit Twitter from profiting from deceptively collected data;
• Allow users to use other multi-factor authentication methods such as mobile authentication apps or security keys that do not require users to provide their telephone numbers;
• Notify users that it misused phone numbers and email addresses collected for account security to also target ads to them and provide information about Twitter’s privacy and security controls;
• Implement and maintain a comprehensive privacy and information security program that requires the company, among other things, to examine and address the potential privacy and security risks of new products;
• Limit employee access to users’ personal data; and
• Notify the FTC if the company experiences a data breach.

The Commission voted 4 to 0 to refer the complaint and stipulated final order to the Department of Justice for filing. 

DOJ filed the complaint and stipulated final order in the District Court of Northern California, San Francisco Division. 

In a statement Damien Kieran, Twitter’s chief privacy officer said that “on May 25, 2022, Twitter reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding a privacy incident disclosed in 2019 when some email addresses and phone numbers provided for account security purposes may have been inadvertently used for advertising. This issue was addressed as of September 17, 2019, and today we want to reiterate the work we’ll continue to do to protect the privacy and security of the people who use Twitter.”

“Keeping data secure and respecting privacy is something we take extremely seriously, and we have cooperated with the FTC every step of the way,” he continued. “In reaching this settlement, we have paid a $150M USD penalty, and we have aligned with the agency on operational updates and program enhancements to ensure that people’s personal data remains secure and their privacy protected.”

Elon Musk, who has proposed acquiring Twitter has not as yet responded to the complaint and the proposed settlement. 

SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter, Inc. has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. 

Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company.

Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter's closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.

The deal would put the world’s richest man in charge of one of the largest social media platforms. 

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," said Musk. "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."

In announcing the deal, Bret Taylor, Twitter's Independent Board Chair, said, "The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon's proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter's stockholders."

The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Twitter Board of Directors, is expected to close in 2022, subject to the approval of Twitter stockholders, the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.

The company said Musk had secured $25.5 billion of fully committed debt and margin loan financing and is providing an approximately $21.0 billion equity commitment. There are no financing conditions to the closing of the transaction, Twitter said. 

SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter, Inc. has announced that Jack Dorsey has decided to step down as CEO and that the Board of Directors has unanimously appointed Parag Agrawal as CEO and a member of the Board, effective immediately.

The company said that in the wake of the announcement there were “no changes to the Company's previously shared outlook for the fourth quarter and full year 2021, or its 2023 goals.”

By 2:15 p.m. ET, the company’s shares had fallen 1.55% to $46.30 in the day’s trading. 

Dorsey will remain a member of the Board until his term expires at the 2022 meeting of stockholders. 

In addition Bret Taylor was named the new chairman of the Board, succeeding Patrick Pichette who will remain on the Board and continue to serve as chair of the Audit Committee. Agrawal has been with Twitter for more than a decade and has served as Chief Technology Officer since 2017.

"I've decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders,” Dorsey said. “My trust in Parag as Twitter's CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I'm deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul. It's his time to lead.”

Bret Taylor, Twitter's incoming Independent Board Chair said, "On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Jack for his visionary leadership and unrelenting dedication to Twitter since its founding. Jack returned to Twitter and turned the Company around at the most critical time. The progress since then has been nothing short of incredible. Jack has given the world something invaluable and we will continue to carry it forward."

"I want to thank the Board for their confidence in my leadership and Jack for his continued mentorship, support, and partnership," said Agrawal. "I look forward to building on everything we have accomplished under Jack's leadership and I am incredibly energized by the opportunities ahead. By continuing to improve our execution, we will deliver tremendous value for our customers and shareholders as we reshape the future of public conversation."

Parag Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and has served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) since October 2017. As CTO, he has been responsible for the Company's technical strategy, leading work to improve development velocity while advancing the state of Machine Learning across the company. 

Prior to being appointed CTO, Parag had risen to be Twitter's first Distinguished Engineer due to his work across revenue and consumer engineering, including his impact on the re-acceleration of audience growth in 2016 and 2017. 

Parag holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

NEW YORK—ViacomCBS Inc. and Twitter have signed a new, multi-year global agreement to deliver premium digital content to the social media platform. The deal includes ViacomCBS' biggest live events, hit shows and iconic franchises from the company's portfolio of entertainment, news and sports brands, including BET, CBS Television Network, CBS News, CBS Sports, Channel 5, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Network 10, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network and Telefe.

Paramount+ will also host three Twitter Watch Parties, in partnership with Twitter, to bring fans together, fuel conversation and build community around highly anticipated original series, the companies said. 

The partnership covers all global markets in which Twitter and ViacomCBS operate. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"We're thrilled to extend our long-standing relationship with Twitter in this expansive global deal that brings together the full ViacomCBS portfolio and magnifies the scale and scope of our valued partnership," said Andrea Wolinetz, senior vice president of distribution and business development-streaming at ViacomCBS. "Twitter is the digital water cooler for trending topics and fandom worldwide, and we're excited to provide front-row access to innovative digital content experiences and culture-defining moments across the best of entertainment, news and sports for Twitter users everywhere."

"We're excited to take our strong partnership to a new level, offering premium content across entertainment, news and sports and giving brands the opportunity to align with ViacomCBS' entire portfolio on a global scale," said Jennifer Prince, head of global content partnerships, Twitter. "Through highlights, Twitter Moments, innovative formats and Paramount+ watch parties, Twitter will put users at the center of the biggest moments happening around the world."

Each of the tentpole programs will be eligible for Twitter marketing support and brand sponsorship sales rights via Twitter's Amplify program, which marries ViacomCBS' premium video with Twitter's paid reach and targeting. ViacomCBS will also tap into a broad range of Twitter marketing features from live video and real-time highlights to Twitter Moments.

Most recently, Twitter and ViacomCBS partnered on the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards and "BET Awards." 

The 2021 "BET Awards" red carpet was live streamed on Twitter, hosted by DJ Envy. 

For the 2021 VMAs, the live pre-show was hosted on Twitter, and the #VMAStanCam was back for the second time, putting fans in the driver's seat and giving them the power to choose the behind-the-scenes and close-up moments they wanted to see.

MTV and Twitter also teamed up on the launch of #VMAStanMail, a first-of-its-kind on-site activation. 

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Olympics and Twitter are still set to have their Olympic moment together, as the two sides have announced an extension of their content partnership that was originally announced for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The original deal was announced in July 2019 solely for the Tokyo Summer Olympics. This new deal, which mirrors the previous one, now covers the postponed Tokyo games slated for 2021 and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

As part of the partnership, NBC Olympics and Twitter will create daily, original programming on Twitter live from the host cities; a daily poll that will have fans vote on what sport they want NBC to provide a live look-in on NBC Primetime or Primetime Plus broadcasts each night; and real-time video highlights. There will also be content starting in June 2021 that will lead up to the start of the Tokyo games on July 23, 2021, including highlights from the U.S. Olympic Team Trials; a similar countdown will take place for the 2022 Beijing games.

“Extending our now multi-Games relationship with Twitter to Tokyo for the Summer Games in 2021 and Winter Games in 2022 from Beijing will again put NBC Olympics’ coverage in front of the vast and very active Twitter audience with great Olympic moments, great Olympic programming and a nightly peek into our primetime broadcast for those not yet in front of their televisions,” said Gary Zenkel, president, NBC Olympics. “This agreement allows us to extend the reach of our Olympic advertisers to those audiences that view the content we have custom produced for Twitter.”

The 2021 Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to take place from July 23-Aug. 8, 2021.

STAMFORD, Conn.—The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo are just about a year away, and Twitter and NBC are going for content gold via a newly announced partnership for the games. As a result of the pairing, NBC and Twitter will boost Olympic coverage via exclusive daily programming, daily viewer polls and video highlights.

Every morning during the 2020 Games, NBC Olympics will produce a 20-minute live studio program from Tokyo that will air exclusively on Twitter. The program will showcase highlights, athlete interviews, stories from the host city and feature Twitter reactions from the games.

Twitter will also show a daily live look-in of NBC Olympics Primetime or Primetime Plus coverage, with the specific coverage of an athlete, sport or event determined each day via a fan poll.

Additional content will come through clips of the most memorable moments from the games, produced by NBC Olympics and published on Twitter. There will also be coverage of pre-games content, starting in February 2020, including real-time highlights of Olympic sports and the U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

“A seminal event like the Olympics offered us the opportunity to think bigger and more robustly about how fans can engage in and around the world-class content that the NBC Olympics team will be bringing to bear,” said Kay Madati, global vice president and head of content partnerships at Twitter. “This partnership gives us the opportunity to bring our highly-engaged audience even closer to NBC Olympics’ coverage of the action happening in Tokyo, providing more content to fuel the already electric Olympic conversation on Twitter.”

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will take place from July 24-Aug 9, 2020.

SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter is touting a new tool as part of its Media Studio that is designed to ease the video clipping of live streams for sharing on the social media site. LiveCut is a cloud-based web application that enables editing and distribution of video highlights of a livestream from a Twitter account.

This new service will serve as a replacement for SnappyTV, which has been Twitter’s real-time video-clipping service for the last five years. LiveCut integrates SnappyTV’s core functionality while utilizing its own features to provide fast and free video-clipping services to social media producers. In addition, publishers can now launch private broadcasts, share broadcasts across teams and create and monetize video clips.

LiveCut is a part of Twitter’s Media Studio.

“We’re confident that we’ve created a product that seamlessly serves video producers’ live-clipping needs on Twitter and, looking forward, will continue investing in it to develop new features that expand its functionality,” Twitter’s announcement read.

As a result of the introduction of LiveCut, SnappyTV is being sunsetted, with the service expected to officially go away by Dec. 31, 2019. Looking to aid in the move to LiveCut, Twitter has made available resources for SnappTV users, best practices and how-to guides on LiveCut.

NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO—As part of a deal with the National Basketball Association, Turner Sports and Twitter will allow NBA fans to follow single player action via an isolated camera feed during basketball games broadcast on TNT. The option, which will tip off with the 2019 NBA All Star Game Feb. 17, will be offered on 19 other regular season and playoff games and only be available to fans in the United States.

During the second half of the games, fans can vote via Twitter on which player to focus on, then the ISO camera will follow the fans’ selected player for the rest of the game.

“The NBA Twitter community is among the most vibrant in sports and entertainment,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. “While watching NBA games on TNT, our fans on Twitter can now enjoy a unique second screen experience that will further enhance the way fans engage with each other and the game.”

“Turner and the NBA have always taken a leadership position in providing fans with engaging experiences and this partnership with Twitter is the latest example,” said David Levy, President of Turner. “This complementary live stream on Twitter – from the distinct vantage point of the fan-voted, most coveted player on a given night – will provide an additive experience for fans to go along with the fully-produced coverage on TNT.”

Since the NBA joined Twitter in 2009, the league says it has built the largest Twitter community of any sports league in the world with 27.5 million followers.

Photo credit: ESPN

NBC News said its streaming network will be called NBC News Signal and will launch as a full time service in mid-2019.

The network’s already available via NBC News’ mobile and OTT apps. It is also on YouTube and Twitter. It is designed to provide young adults with information about political and social issues.

NBC News Signal’s evening show, hosted by Simone Boyce, will be produced as a daily later this quarter. The show currently streams on Thursday evenings.A morning and afternoon show, and hourly news updates called Brieflies, will launch in the coming months.

Between now and Election Day, 2018: Race for the House with Steve Kornacki will appear daily at noon. Katy Tur will host a show before the polls close on Nov. 6.

“There is a growing segment of people who have never had a cable subscription, but who are just as hungry for smart news as the prior generations of news watchers who have consumed NBC News for decades,” said Nick Ascheim, senior vice president of digital at NBC News Group. “These consumers – who are up-to-date on the headlines but are seeking a deeper understanding of the news of the moment – are increasingly turning to OTT devices for ‘lean back’ news consumption or an on-the-go informative experience and that’s exactly what NBC News Signal will deliver.”

Erica Fink and Christine Cataldi are the executive producers for the network. Rashida Jones, senior vice president of specials for NBC News and MSNBC, is the executive in charge of programming for NBC News Signal.

“People love to stay informed and constantly up-to-date and we’re seeing increased demand from advertisers wanting to connect with this passionate and engaged audience,” said Trevor Fellows, executive vice president for NBCUniversal digital sales and partnerships. “NBC News Signal is a strong complement to the full portfolio of options, including Stay Tuned on Snapchat, Apple News, plus our owned properties including Today, NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC.”

DALLAS--A growing number of U.S. broadband households is spending more time watching user generated live content on social media, according to a new industry report from Parks Associates. The growth in this sector parallels a declining number of viewers getting their news from local new sources.

In the research firm’s report, “The Future of Live Entertainment,” 47 percent of U.S. broadband households watch user-generated content more than once per month. By the end of 2017, 12 percent of U.S. broadband households were regularly watching either a live TV show or live events via a live streaming site or app such as Twitter, Facebook, or Twitch. ABC launched a 24/7 live streaming network in April 2018 to capitalize on this trend.

The report also found that just 37 percent of U.S. adults are getting their news from local news sources, including newspapers, TV and radio, down from 46 percent in 2016.

[Read: ‘Consistent Experience’ Is Key To Combining OTT, Linear TV']

"Total average video consumption on a television has dropped 13 percent, from more than 20 hours per week in 2012 to less than 17 hours per week in 2017," said Billy Nayden, Research Analyst, Parks Associates. "In contrast, user-generated live content is gaining popularity, with platforms such as Instagram Live providing new ways for content creators to engage with their viewers in real time. As more alternatives to traditional TV emerge, all players will explore new and unique ways to package and present digital streaming as part of their services.

"For content whose value is its live broadcast, such as sports and breaking news, there are online alternatives emerging," Nayden added. "Much of news consumption has moved to social media, while sports TV has shifted to digital in recent years, with many OTT options going direct to consumers, including MLB.TV, NBA League Pass, and ESPN+."

The report also found that Millennials (18-34 years of age), watch 30 percent of their live content on a TV from online video services and that 78 percent of that age group report getting their news from social media. Approximately 35 percent of TV antenna owners connect their antenna to a streaming media player.

MOSCOW--Fox Sports (the exclusive English-language home of the 2018 FIFA World Cup) and Twitter are collaborating on a live daily online show that is being streamed directly to Twitter using Telestream’s Wirecast live video streaming production software. Hosted by Rachel Bonnetta (@rachelbonnetta), the FIFA World Cup Now show is streamed exclusively on Twitter from Moscow’s Red Square each match day (27 shows, in total). It provides post-game recaps of all events, news, analysis, player and manager interviews, social media reaction from around the world, as well as original segments produced by Fox’s team in Moscow. The live coverage is in the United States to Twitter’s audience and can be viewed via @FOXSoccer on computers, tablets and mobile devices.

To create the live stream, the Fox Sports digital content group chose Telestream Wirecast to create a professional looking live stream that mimics the Fox Sports TV broadcast while offering digital elements such as responding to social media. The switcher inside Wirecast enables operators to switch sources and feature guests from anywhere in the world. The layers interface inside Wirecast enable operators to feature multiple picture-in-picture displays with graphics such as scores, stats, Tweets, and other relevant match data. Wirecast’s internal encoder will package and send the resulting live stream to Twitter.

"As soon as we started working with Wirecast, the quality of our productions increased dramatically. We're now at the largest sporting events in the world and we're happy with the partnership," said Daniela Mayock, who oversees the technical operations for the FIFA World Cup Now show.

The goal for the streaming show is to be an extension of everything the audience sees on linear TV, produced in a slightly different way, with a raw, in the moment feel. The same graphics packages and set location/desk (Red Square) are being used as well as high-quality broadcast cameras. Producing live streams at an event like the FIFA World Cup can be raucous, chaotic, and extremely fast-paced. It was important to the crew that they have an intuitive, stable and reliable tool that is cool under pressure and handles varying internet environments when working remotely.

“Wirecast is helping us extend our reach and increase engagement, particularly with a growing audience that is consuming their content on mobile, and many via social,” said Michael Jankolovits, Senior Director of Video Production for FOX Sports Digital.

The Fox Sports digital team used Wirecast previously for 4 shows at SXSW, and it was used for all of their major digital livestreams including:

Superbowl LI and 2017 NFC Championship Game

• 2016 MLS Cup

• 2017 MLS All-Star Game

• 2016 Big East Basketball Tournament Final

• College Football games

• 2016 & 2017 World Series

• 2016 & 2017 MLB All-Star Game

• 2016 & 2017 Big Ten Football Championship Game

• Daily FIFA World Cup digital on Twitter

The FIFA World Cup represents one of the most challenging and rewarding productions yet undertaken by the Fox Sports digital content team.

Scott Murray is vice president of product management for Telestream.

Twitter announced new content deals and renewals with 30 partners at its NewFront presentation Monday night (April 30) in New York.  

The activity nearly doubles the number of deals the social media company announced last year.

NBCUniversal, ESPN, Will Packer Media, Viacom and Hearst are among the companies providing content that will appear on Twitter.

“Twitter is the only place where conversation is tied to video and the biggest live moments, giving brands the unique ability to connect with leaned-in consumers who are shaping culture,” said Twitter global VP of revenue and content partnerships Matthew Derella. “That’s our superpower.”

Programs dedicated to topics like women’s empowerment and communities like Black Twitter were introduced to complement the rich conversation about these movements on the platform.

[Read: Bloomberg, Twitter Launch First 24/7 Global Social News Network]

Twitter also announced a Creators Originals, Powered by Niche, a network working with creators to make premium original series on Twitter.

It also introduced a Live Brand Studio, which will help brands create content for Twitter and provide analytics.

Under the deal with NBCUniversal, NBCU will distribute on Twitter live video and clips from units including NBC, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, Telemudo, Today and E! News.

Other entertainment programming will be provided by Live Nation, Ellen Digital Sudios and Hearst Magazine Digital Studios.

Viacom will be bringing back exclusive red carpet coverage of big award shows on MTV and BET. New shows from Viacom include the Comedy Central Creators Room, BET Breaks, MTV News and MTV News International.

Inspired by the cultural phenomenon of Black Twitter, Power Star Live from executive producer Will Packer’s Will Packer Media, is a 30-minute weekly show streamed live from the Atlanta University Center in Atlanta. It brings together the most entertaining, enlightening and comedic content across Twitter feeds while attributing and highlighting diverse voices.

Twitter will also be getting news content from BuszFeed, Vice, #Huff Post, History and Vox Media.

Sports content will emanate from ESPN, including SportsCenter, Turner’s Bleacher Report, The Players’ Tribune and Barstool Sports, and sports leagues including Major League Beaseball, MLS and Formula One.

 Visit our NAB Show social hub at www.tvtechnology.com/social and stay up to date with show news. To join the conversation, use Twitter hashtags #myNAB2018 and #NABShow, or email your links to tvtech@nbmedia.com.  

LONDON—Bloomberg Media and Twitter are today launching the first-ever 24/7 global news network built for a social media platform. TicToc by Bloomberg is aiming to target "on-the-go, mobile-first news consumers."

The network will use Bloomberg's 2,700 journalists and analysts from across 120 countries and features a mix of live video and reporting as well as breaking news direct from consumers themselves, which has been curated and verified by Bloomberg editors.

The global news update will be available for replay and refreshed each hour with stories from around the world. Relevant tweets, curated and verified by Bloomberg, will run below the video programming, allowing consumers to see accurate tweet conversations around the news.

"We're seeing a shift in the media landscape today: more content companies are partnering with platforms to create hybrid businesses that better serve consumers and society. With TicToc by Bloomberg, we're fusing the best of Bloomberg and Twitter to build a fast and credible modern news experience," said Bloomberg Media CEO Justin B. Smith.

"The launch of this new network further reinforces our strategy of driving innovation through exciting new products and services that touch a broad audience around the world."

"Twitter is where people go for breaking news, and now our global audience can turn to TicToc by Bloomberg at any time to see what's happening in the world no matter where they are," added Anthony Noto, Twitter COO. "Combining the journalistic integrity of Bloomberg with the speed and global availability of Twitter makes this a collaboration we are really excited about."

To view TicToc by Bloomberg, follow @tictoc or visit live.twitter.com/tictoc. 

SAN FRANCISCO & PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLA.—The PGA Tour has scored a birdie of a different kind with its new deal with Twitter to be the exclusive global platform to distribute free live competition coverage during the 2017 season. This deal comes as a result of the two organizations live streaming collaboration for the 2016 FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Starting with the Jan. 19 CareerBuilder Challenge, Twitter will be offering live streams of the first 60-90 minutes of early Thursday and Friday morning play on PGA Tour Live’s OTT subscription window. Coverage will include pre-game analysis, interviews, range coverage, and live competition from the first two holes of each day’s PGA Tour Live marquee groups. The season’s offering will conclude with the Tour Championship.

Live streams will be available for both logged-in and logged-out users on Twitter and connected devices. The streams can be found at PGATourLive.twitter.com and on @PGATour.

In addition, this new partnership includes an extension of the PGA Tour and Twitter’s Amplify program, which will see the PGA increase its highlight videos and regular content creation across Twitter and Periscope.

SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter will be hob-knobbing it with some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities at this year’s Golden Globes Awards, as the social media site has announced a partnership with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Dick Clark Productions to provide a live stream of the Golden Globes official red carpet pre-show.

The broadcast will be available in the U.S. for Twitter’s logged-in and logged-out users on Twitter and connected devices. The pre-show will feature exclusive interviews and Twitter content, as well as questions sourced from Twitter users. Hosts for the pre-show are expected to be announced soon.

This is another step in Twitter’s goal to providing live streaming broadcasts of major events to its users. The social media site has already offered live streams of a handful of NFL “Thursday Night Football” games this season.

“The HFPA Presents: Golden Globes Red Carpet Live” will take place on Jan. 8 from 6-8 p.m. ET.

LONDON—Back in April, Twitter secured the $10 million rights to broadcast ten Thursday night NFL games online, free of charge. What made the move so ground-breaking was the ease in which a non-sports platform suddenly snapped up the rights to air the biggest sport in the U.S. Bearing in mind, of course, that the pinnacle of the social media company’s sporting content prior to this was Boring James Milner and the occasional rant from Piers Morgan. Publicity stunt, or statement of intent?

Fellow social media giant Facebook launched Live in August last year, initially limited to celebrities and other verified Facebook users, such as journalists. By Christmas, however, it had rolled out the feature to the general public. Usage has been gathering pace ever since, and, considering its interest in purchasing the NFL rights before Twitter swooped, it appears its video content is going only one way: traditional broadcast.

But where has this sudden interest come from? When did the crosshairs begin to focus on video?

Gareth Capon, CEO of Grabyo, announced as an official live streaming partner of Facebook at the F8 Conference in April, explains: “(With Live) Facebook have found that they’re generating more engagement, interactivity and sharing that they have with other formats. They’ve doubled down their efforts on providing the capabilities for partners to go live stream into Facebook to create new audiences and new engagement and utilize the vast audience on that platform to be able to distribute the content very quickly to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.”

FOOTBALL RIGHTS: WORTH EVERY PENNY?

The war for Premier League coverage rages on, and, despite jumping from £2.79 million per game in 1997 to a whopping £11.07 million per game for the upcoming 2016-17 season, the rising price tag shows no signs of slowing.

Despite this, Google secured a deal with BT in May to broadcast the 2016 Europa League and Champions League finals free via YouTube.

The digital giant has previously shown no signs of wishing to partake in the live sports market, but this move suggests a change in strategy.

However, speaking at the DTG Summit in May, Stephen Nuttall, senior director of EMEA for YouTube, moved to quash the idea of competing in the sports market, stating, “We are not a buyer of rights. We are very good at distributing content to the largest possible audience. We are a technology company, we do a great job of creating tools that broadcasters can use to tell their stories to largest possible engaged audience. That is what I expect we will continue to focus on. Our whole model is about partnering with people to allow them to make the greatest possible success out of their content.”

Regardless of YouTube’s stance on competing directly, it does pose the question; if Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can generate the same kind of audiences on their platforms as any pay-TV channel (and they can), why bother investing in much more expensive television broadcasts?

Securing global rights and monetization, it would seem, are two stumbling blocks.

Capon adds, “The challenge is that it needs to be new, bespoke, rights unrestricted content. The content goes out and it’s available for free. There are no very clear monetization models around this yet, other than tagging branded videos.

Such deals, then, may be mere experiment: probes to gauge popularity with viewers.

Capon explains, “It’s such an interesting way of sharing live feeds. It’s promoted quite heavily within the Facebook newsfeed, so the opportunity for you to see that is quite high. The chance of you joining the stream is greater; that’s what’s different and what is not even possible in the traditional OTT or TV environment.

EURO 2016: THE LAST TV-EXCLUSIVE?

With such large sporting events hitting the small screen in 2016, it appears likely that the recent European Championships in France will be the last major international football tournament to air exclusively on television.

Dror Ginzberg, co-founder and CEO of Wochit, says, “Despite BT Sport paying a record £897 million for Champions League and Europa League TV rights, it made the unprecedented move to partner with YouTube to air both finals for free.

“Combining traditional TV with online platforms will give UEFA and FIFA, the powerbrokers of football, an unprecedented opportunity to earn much more revenue from rights selling, while also opening the door to a host of new commercial opportunities. It is really now only a matter of time until we see future European Championships and World Cups online.”

All it all, it’s safe to say that the digital revolution has left TV fragmented, and rights deals in a tangled mess. In the long term, however, viewers have the power. If Facebook continues to host billions of users on a day-to-day basis, then it’s surely only a matter of time before mainstream content, whether in rivalry or collaboration, begins to filter through onto social media.

With such varied expert views and hypothetical scenarios, it would appear we can arrive only at that frustrating, age-old conclusion: time will tell. One thing is certain: as long as these emerging platforms have a say on the matter, Sky is most certainly not the limit.

This story first appeared on TV Technology's sister publication TVB Europe. 

SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter going all-in on live streaming for sports, as the company has announced that it recently closed a partnership with both the MLB and NHL to stream weekly out-of-market games. In addition, OTT network 120 Sports will produce nightly multi-sports highlight show “The Rally.” All live streaming deals are through the social media site’s new partnership with MLBAM.

Live streams of out-of-market MLB and NHL games will be offered once a week to both logged-in and logged-out Twitter users in the U.S. Worldwide users will also be able to access MLB games, except in select international territories. Twitter will release a schedule for the games at a later date.

“The Rally” will integrate Twitter’s platform into its live streaming program, using Twitter-based data to determine live trending topics and adding interactive elements.

This announcement comes on the heel of Twitter landing other sports streaming deals, including for the NFL’s Thursday Night Football and the Pac-12 Network.

SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter continues to grow its stable of live streaming content, as Pac-12 Networks has announced that the social media site will be its streaming partner for Pac-12 Plus, a broadband network of live events produced by the conference’s 12 universities. More than 150 games are expected to be live streamed via Twitter during the 2016-2017 academic year.

The Pac-12—which consists of the University of Arizona, Arizon State, University of California, University of Colorado, University of Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford University, UCLA, USC, University of Utah, University of Washington, and Washington State—will provide live streams of soccer, volleyball, gymnastics, baseball, ice hockey, swimming & diving, softball, track & field, wrestling, lacrosse, tennis and water polo.

The events are also expected to be streamed on university official athletic sites and Pac-12.com.

ARLINGTON, VA.—The Consumer Technology Association has announced that Facebook and Twitter are its latest members. The two companies join other social media, app and service providers in the trade association that seeks to represent the entirety of the consumer technology industry.

In addition, Facebook will join CTA’s Disruptive Innovation Council, which engages policymakers and the public on the benefits that companies bring to the marketplace. The council is made up of Airbnb, Boingo, DJI, Expedia, Google, GoPro, Lyft, MC10, Nest, Pandora, TripAdvisor, Uber, WebMD and Yelp.

CTA, which reports to have more than 2,200 members, says it provides services, networking opportunities, research and other benefits to support the growth of the industry and advocates for pro-innovation public policies. It is based in Arlington, Va.

LOS ANGELES—After a reported bidding war for the rights to exclusively stream Thursday Night Football (TNF) games next season, the NFL has announced that Twitter has emerged as the winner. The social media site will deliver a live OTT digital stream of 10 games for the 2016 football season across devices for free. Twitter will serve as the third part of the NFL’s “tri-cast” distribution model, which includes broadcast on NBC or CBS, cable via the NFL Network, and now digital from Twitter.

In addition to the live stream, the partnership will include in-game highlights from TNF and pre-game Periscope broadcasts from players and teams. Twitter users will be able to live stream the games without authentication through their phones, tablets, PCs and connected TVs. Twitter and the NFL had a previous partnership that provided video highlights and other features.

Twitter was able to tackle the streaming rights away from other interested parties, which reportedly included Amazon, Verizon and Facebook, though Facebook previously announced that it had dropped out of the running for the rights according to multiple reports.

“This is about transforming the fan experience with football,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO. “People watch NFL games with Twitter today. Now they’ll be able to watch right on Twitter Thursday nights.” 

The NFL streaming package comes after the league’s initial test of live streaming a regular season NFL game last season on Yahoo. A game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars at London’s Wembly Stadium was streamed by 33.6 million people, according to the NFL, last October.

NEW YORK – Football is back. After this past weekend’s Hall of Fame introductions and first preseason game, the start of the 2015 NFL regular season is just a month away. With that comes a new way for fans to stay connected with the biggest stories in the league, as the NFL and Twitter have officially announced a multiyear partnership to deliver unique NFL video and other content daily to fans throughout the season.

Twitter users will have access to things like in-game highlights from the preseason to the Super Bowl, breaking news, analysis, best plays, custom game recaps, infographics, behind-the-scenes content and archival video. The NFL and Twitter will also continue to develop new features and user experiences for fans to enjoy and for brands to present NFL content specifically designed for Twitter.

The NFL and Twitter first established a partnership in 2013 through the Twitter Amplify program.

The NFL regular season will kick-off on Sept. 10 when the defending champions New England Patriots take on the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Tom Butts,

Editor-in-Chief

tbutts@nbmedia.com
Most broadcasters who are integrating more social media into their programming—both on-air and online—are doing so in managed and measured ways that emphasize relevancy and effectiveness. In other words, before taking the plunge, TV stations are trying to determine what is “just enough” or “too much,” as well as formulating specific plans when engaging with their audiences through services such as Facebook, Twitter and similar popular networks.

This is the conclusion of last month’s report from the Radio Television Digital News Association, in which the organization partnered with Hofstra University to survey about 150 TV news directors about the growing use of social media in broadcasts. The annual survey showed that stations are developing specific plans for dealing with social media, including setting up schedules for staffers to post (with a de-emphasis on automation and emphasizing more targeted efforts), and hiring new staffers focused solely on social media. A common element however, is that most are moving forward with specific goals in mind. Some stations are more interested in engaging with their audience through online “conversations” while others are using social networks to provide a behind-the-scenes look at their facilities. Twitter seemed to be the most popular social media network, although Facebook also rated high.

TBS staff members work on social media postings.
Sports networks are also measuring the effectiveness of their social media efforts. ESPN is well known for its active engagement with its audience via social networks but regional sports networks are also getting better connected with their viewers as well. As Mark Smith reports on our p. 1 story on social networking in sports programming, network directors are trying to strike a balance between knowing when and where to integrate it into their schedules. Some are incorporating it into all of their programming while others reserve it for special events. “There’s a fine line between using it to enhance your broadcast and overdoing it,” said one RSN producer.

The same RTDNA survey also asked stations about their mobile efforts and found that, unexpectedly, stations have slightly pulled back on their mobile efforts than in the previous annual survey. Last year, more respondents were focused on developing strategies while this year, the emphasis was on execution. Weather and mobile news streaming apps were the most popular services cited in the survey.

As the RTDNA survey illustrateS, broadcasters are not standing still when it comes to using social media and mobile apps. But unlike their online counterparts who often burn out too quickly, they’re planning ahead, and using their expertise in programming and demographics to more fully engage with their viewers.

BALTIMORE—Too much? Not enough? Or just right?

Those seem to be the key questions concerning the proper use of social media, not just by the public, but by sports networks during sporting events and other programming. Some employ it so often that they also air actual programs dedicated to the day’s posts and comments; others pick-and-choose moments, programs and moments in programs when it’s time to go social.

So, the approaches by the various sports nets can be… well, varied, just as there are a variety of companies that provide software for distribution and aggregation to the market.

DRIVING TRAFFIC

Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia has a partnership with Oracle, and thus employs its Social Relationship Management product. “We use information we glean from the software to digest the analytics created by posts and traffic on our web site,” said Todd Berman, senior director of digital media for the regional sports network. Additionally, the RSN uses Hootsuite “to monitor what people in our market are talking about,” Berman said, and to find out what might be trending and for security management.

The strategy at CSN Philly is two-fold. “We want to drive traffic to our web site and people to our broadcasts. Social is a huge part to what we do,” he said, noting that the sports net even airs a program, “End Game,” specifically to address posts and trends on social media. 

Berman said his department even created an account for Philadelphia Flyers fans on Twitter “so they can get exclusives from behind the scenes,” including still pictures, graphics and questions. “We also send scoreboards out during the games, so if a fan isn’t in front of their TV, they know what’s happening,” he said, “and when the Flyers introduced their new coach, fans could watch on TV or on Periscope,” an online streaming tool.

How important has streaming become at the sports net? “Every show we have incorporates social media, in some way,” he said, noting “This landscape is evolving very quickly.”

Fox Sports North believes in a measured approach to combining its sports coverage with social media, saving it for special events like "Hockey Day Minnesota."

True, but not every RSN uses social media as frequently. Consider the case of Fox Sports North in Minneapolis, where Trevor Fleck, the coordinating producer, spoke of the more reserved approach.

“We save it major events, like opening day and the playoffs,” said Fleck, looking back to last year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which was held at Target Field in Minneapolis. “We did it on the nine days leading up to the event. We also integrated social media into coverage of Hockey Day Minnesota, from 9 a.m. until about 2 a.m. the next day,” he said. “That’s been our biggest day of using it. Our second channel was totally dedicated to social media that day.”

Fox Sports North employs ChyronHego’s Duet for graphics, likewise for its social media platforms. On Hockey Day Minnesota, it also incorporated Spredfast, which aggregates various feeds.

Fleck feels that the occasional use of social media heightens its impact. “There’s a fine line between using it to enhance your broadcast and overdoing it,” he said. “It can be planned or happen organically, if a play goes viral,” etc.

So for now, it’s a case-by-case situation. “We had a social media reporter a couple of years ago,” he said, “but now she’s just a regular reporter, since all of our reporters are up to speed with how to distribute social media.”

A HAPPY MEDIUM

At Root Sports Northwest, Executive Producer Jon Bradford and company seem to have found a happy medium with the RSN’s approach. “We just do a couple of things,” said Bradford, “because we want to interact with, rather than push or pull from, our viewers.”

Roots Sports Media, the regional sports network for the Seattle Mariners, conducts a "Twitter Tuesday" contest with fans.

That includes Twitter Tuesday, when the Seattle Mariners’ broadcast team of Dave Sims and Mike Blowers conduct “Inside the Game” and ask fans to share their baseball knowledge. Then also ask one trivia question during the pregame show and four more during the game; that results in 500-700 hundred responses that are sorted via hashtags.

Root works with software creator/social media aggregator Tagboard on the “Ask Root” segment, where viewers are queried about where they are and what they’re doing during the broadcasts; and the “Ultimate Fan” segment, where the team polls viewers from states in the Pacific Northwest as to why that might be them.

Speaking of pushing and pulling, Turner Sports works with several large platforms, including Virzt, as well as startups. And like Root, they seem to have found a good place in the social media world by picking their spots, too.

“Sports and social media have a very natural, symbiotic relationship. Nothing is forced,” said Morgan Dewan, senior director of social media for Turner Sports. “Our producers [understand] how to weave social media reactions, commentary and content into the broadcast. Our goal is to never do social media integrations for social media’s sake. We want to enhance the storylines and provide compelling content for our analysts to react to.”

Most of Turner Sports’ social media integrations happen during its studio shows, including “Inside the NBA,” when it’s easier for the host to [address] the conversation taking place across social, according to Dewan. She adds that she and her crew have learned a great deal from “Bleacher Report,” another part of the Turner Sports portfolio. “They’re exceptional at this and have built a very impressive push/pull system, which connects their social properties to their app and [web] site,” she said.

Dewan stressed that, as a sports media company, it’s important for Turner Sports to understand where, and how, fans are consuming content. “We break down type of posts by day of week and time of day,” she said, “so that we can be more deliberate in our coverage and publishing cadence.” 

SPRINGFIELD, VA.— Live events are the lifeblood of broadcasting, whether they’re planned, like the Super Bowl or the, Academy Awards, or breaking news. This has become even more evident as more viewers access their favorite programs via on-demand and abandon the idea of arranging their lives around the TV schedule. Despite this, many viewers are still attracted to the idea of “appointment TV,” as evidenced by the recent successes of NBC’s live productions of “The Sound of Music” and “Peter Pan.”

One of the reasons for the return of this phenomenon—which pretty much disappeared in the early 1960s but has made a bit of a comeback—is the tie-in with social media. Whether viewers are prompted by “hate watching” a live production (a popular activity during “Peter Pan,” according to Salon), or cheering their favorite team in the NBA finals, social media has played an increasingly important role in providing the promise of interactive TV that never really materialized until now.

Of all the social media outlets, Twitter is probably the one that most resembles broadcasting. Think about it: When you send out a tweet, you are broadcasting (a link, pithy comment or criticism) to your followers. Adding a #hashtag to your tweet allows you to broadcast to an even larger audience.

Twitter, however, has struggled to establish an effective business plan to compete with similar social media services like Facebook. Last week, amid reports of flagging revenues, the company announced the resignation of CEO Dick Costolo, who helped the company navigate its way from a small startup to the established social media player it is today. Despite efforts to increase its advertising base, Twitter remains a distant second to the Facebook powerhouse when it comes to revenues. Likewise, it also has trouble retaining and maintaining an active user base—although the company says it has more than 250 million users, more than two-thirds of them are inactive. For many users, Twitter is either “too hard to use” or lacks the immediate gratification of Facebook.

That’s why I was intrigued when The New York Times published an article last week that provided some much needed advice on how Twitter can up its game—namely, tie itself more to live events. In his article “For Twitter, Future Means Here and Now,” Farhad Manjoo, who based his piece on a much longer article by venture capitalist Chris Sacca, makes the argument that Twitter needs to become more focused on its biggest strength, namely, live events and breaking news.

“We live in an era dominated by time-shifted media,” Manjoo writes. “Just about everything worth watching can be watched later, when it’s more convenient. Even so, many of us find experiencing media communally to be a deeply meaningful experience—much more meaningful than watching it later. The desire for communal experiences explains why the Super Bowl is still a mega TV event, why ESPN has grown to become one of the most valuable media properties on the planet, and why HBO has turned Sunday nights into a marquee time for television.”

Adding that “Twitter is well-positioned to take advantage of this desire,” Manjoo writes that the social media giant could add a few features—such as notifications and algorithms to create a more visual and interactive community surrounding a live program, sporting event or breaking news—that would better enable this burgeoning phenomenon. When viewers catch Cookie doing something outrageous on ‘Empire,’they might want to share their outrage with their friends on Facebook—but they can get better traction on Twitter, announcing their reaction to a bigger audience simply by adding the right hashtag.

Ever since the dawn of broadcasting, when a breaking event happens, consumers turned to radio and television for the latest news. They’re still doing that, but they’re also tuning into social media, and in particular, Twitter. And with Twitter’s addition of Periscope—which allows live video streaming that expires after a certain time—its similarities with broadcasting are even stronger.

As the broadcasting industry searches for better ways to remain relevant in an increasingly crowded media landscape, tie-ins with social media are becoming more popular. One example was demonstrated by a successful partnership between Twitter and the USTA for the US Open, discussed at NewBay Media’s Live TV Summit last fall. Partnerships like these, along with an increased focus on live events, can help both broadcasters and Twitter increase their visibility and relevancy.

“The best analog for Mr. Sacca’s vision is a digital-era version of television or radio — a global coming together in an otherwise lifeless, anodyne digital world,” Manjoo concludes in his article. “Twitter’s next chief could build such a thing. And it could be glorious.”