Twitter hopes to stream paid TV
You could watch and tweet in one place.
Have you spent a lot of time watching Twitter's live video? No? We can't entirely blame you -- with some exceptions, many of its streaming agreements are for niche events. However, the social network might have a way to make its watch-and-tweet feature more broadly appealing. Twitter's Anthony Noto tells the Telegraph that his company is hoping to land deals for streaming pay TV channels on its site and apps. You'd have to subscribe to existing TV service for this to work, but it would be much more powerful -- you could theoretically watch and comment on all the live programming you're used to, such as Premier League matches (Noto's example) or the latest episode of your favorite drama.
It's not clear just how close Twitter may be to securing these deals, let alone who it's talking to (if anyone). Twitter tells us that it doesn't have anything more to add to Noto's remarks. Given the requirement for an existing subscription, though, Twitter might not have too much trouble garnering support from TV networks that are normally averse to internet-only video.
There's certainly pressure to sign these kinds of pacts soon. Twitter is betting on video as an answer to its financial struggles, and pay TV would make that video more alluring to just about anyone with a conventional cable subscription. Even if it doesn't convince people to sign up for Twitter, it might get existing users to participate more often and stick around in the long run.
