Twitter is entering a new partnership with news and entertainment company Cheddar to expand its focus on live streaming content. The announcement today details that Twitter will be hosting a series of Cheddar’s different live stream programs for viewers, revolving around a few different categories such as business and technology. While the aim is to end up with multiple programs that will be live streamed on Twitter, things will kick off with two shows, called Opening Bell and Closing Bell that are both focused on finance. Opening Bell will be live streamed in the morning starting at 9 AM Eastern and will run for an hour and a half on Cheddar’s website, while the hour-long Closing Bell hits in the second half of the day starting at 3 PM Eastern and will air on Twitter exclusively and for free.
While Opening Bell and Closing Bell both have finance as a cornerstone of the show content, Opening Bell will focus on coverage for the markets as well as business, interviews with CEOs, and any breaking news that has popped up that day. Closing Bell will also feature interviews with CEOs, as well as cover news on startups and high-tech, and have in-depth coverage on company earnings.
With the Cheddar partnership in place, Twitter will be adding more live stream content to its platform alongside other deals with the NFL and the NBA to live stream content exclusively, and is not only another way for Twitter to make a push into live streaming, but also a way for them to increase the value of Twitter as a service and potentially keep users engaged. It also demonstrates that Twitter’s interest in being viewed as more of a news platform than a social platform continues to grow. In addition to landing another live stream deal, Twitter is making other decisions to bolster its offerings to users, having recently added read receipts to direct messages as of last week on September 8th, and as of earlier today Twitter added new Deezer audio cards to both the Android and iOS apps for users to get access to even more streaming audio content. At this time, neither Twitter nor Cheddar have mentioned a launch date for the live stream content.