Continuing its apparent quest to become the first destination for online viewers seeking live content, Twitter Inc. has announced a new broadcasting partnership with online video news network Cheddar.
The social media media icon has become the exclusive live streaming platform for “Closing Bell,” a Cheddar-produced program that includes breaking news, market and business coverage, interviews with CEOs and startup founders, and profiles of new technology, media, and culture ventures.
“It’s another step in our broader strategy of live streaming content, live sports, live news and politics, and of course, live entertainment,” Twitter CFO Anthony Noto said in a clip posted yesterday to Cheddar’s Twitter account. “We’re really looking forward to being your partner – to creating something great together.”
In a Sept. 12 statement, Cheddar founder and CEO Jon Steinberg said his company was equally thrilled to be collaborating with Twitter.
Founded earlier this year by former BuzzFeed president and Daily Mail U.S. CEO Steinberg, Cheddar is a media startup built on the premise of attracting a smaller, but potentially more lucrative, audience than some of its more omnivorous competition – business-minded millennials – by streaming at least 90 minutes of live content every day, primarily from the New York Stock Exchange, then distributing clips from its content across platforms such as YouTube.
And according to a Feb. 19 article at Business Insider, the company plans for distribution deals with streaming services such as Netflix – or in this case, Twitter – to be its main source of revenue, rather than more traditional preroll advertising.
“Nobody is doing programming right now for people without cable boxes that have TVs on their walls, in offices, and have Rokus, Apple TVs and Chromecast connected to them,” Steinberg told Business Insider at the time. “I take the belief that no one coming out of college is going to get a cable box.”
Presently, Cheddar broadcasts live “Opening Bell” markets coverage daily on its own website between 9 AM and 10:30 AM EST. It will begin broadcasting “Closing Bell” coverage on Twitter between 3 PM and 4 PM EST in October.
Excited to partner with Twitter on live video @anthonynoto pic.twitter.com/rVS8rtAEhX
— Cheddar (@cheddar) September 12, 2016