NewFronts: Twitter To Stream Concerts In Live Nation Partnership, Expanding Sports And News Offerings

NewFronts

TWITTER has unveiled its plans for more original and live video programming, and among the ventures announced at its NewFronts event in NEW YORK on MONDAY (5/1) were live concerts in partnership with LIVE NATION and awards shows from MTV.

The programming from LIVE NATION starts on MAY 13th with a live stream of THE ZAC BROWN BAND from ATLANTA, followed by concerts with TRAIN, PORTUGAL. THE MAN, AUGUST ALSINA, and MARIAN HILL. VIACOM's MTV will offer streaming of the MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS, the MTV MOVIE AND TV AWARDS, and more. A daily entertainment show from A+E NETWORKS and PROPAGATE CONTENT, "#WHATSHAPPENING," will be hosted by WNYC STUDIOS "2 DOPE QUEENS" co-host PHOEBE ROBINSON. Fashion Week and other runways will be covered with live streams produced by IMG FASHION.

News streams will include a 24-hour news channel this FALL from BLOOMBERG MEDIA, "MORNING FEED" from BUZZFEED, THE VERGE's weekly gadget show "CIRCUIT BREAKER," and financial site CHEDDAR adding an "OPENING BELL" show at 9a (ET) to its existing "CLOSING BELL" 3p (ET) show.

Sports will include the previously-announced weekly baseball games, plus a weekly MLB whip-around show, a weekly WNBA game of the week, a show produced by THE PLAYER'S TRIBUNE, a "network" for live college sports plus additional programming called "STADIUM," and an expansion of the existing PGA TOUR deal to add 360-degree video from the famous "island" hole at TPC SAWGRASS during the PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP this month. After losing the THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL streaming rights to AMAZON for next season, TWITTER will add live pre-game coverage and highlight clips.

"We could not be prouder of the success we have achieved so quickly since launching live streaming premium content. Last quarter, we streamed over 800 hours of live premium content from leading brands across sports, esports, news, and entertainment," said COO ANTHONY NOTO. "Adding these 12 new live deals tonight is a testament to the success of our only-on-TWITTER experience, combining high quality streaming video with our only-on-TWITTER conversation."

"The rest of this month, you're going to see a lot of presentations," said Global VP of Client Solutions MATTHEW DERELLA. "You're not going to see anyone that can give you the audience mindset, the most premium content, and do both at massive and accelerating scale like TWITTER can."

More From NewFronts

At its own NewFronts presentation, the NEW YORK TIMES promised a weekend edition of the successful weekday morning news roundup "THE DAILY," coming this SUMMER, and said that it would be doing more podcasts in the vein of "SERIAL" and "S-TOWN." Multichannel network AWESOMENESS announced the renewal of five series, "FREAKISH" (HULU), "GUIDANCE" and "T@GGED" on VERIZON's go90, "THE COMMUTE" on AWESOMENESS TV, and "FOURSOME" on YOU TUBE RED, and also announced a JUNE 16th debut of its film "YOU GET ME" on NETFLIX as well as expansion of its AWESTRUCK video brand for Millennial women. This year, several major players in digital entertainment are skipping major NewFronts presentations, including YAHOO (which is holding regional events instead), BUZZFEED, AOL (holding a private presentation), FULLSCREEN, STUDIO71 (streaming a presentation online), and MACHINIMA.

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