Twitter Partners With BBC to Cover UK Election

Shares of Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) saw a handy gain on Tuesday after it was announced that the social media giant would be partnering with BBC to help cover the U.K. election. This is yet another partnership that Twitter has built with major content producers to further use its platform.

According to the deal, BBC will live stream five election specials on Twitter, in turn bringing this key election coverage to users on the platform. Note that this will be the first time that BBC has partnered with Twitter.

Specifically, coverage will be for the BBC Election Debate on 31 May; the two Question Time Leaders Specials on June 2 and 4; the Newsbeat Youth Debate on June 6; and finally the Election Night Results Special on June 8.

This trial interactive experience will offer a real-time curated timeline of tweets, allowing followers to see immediate commentary from BBC experts and BBC Reality Check.

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In the past, Twitter has partnered with Bloomberg to cover the U.S. election and live stream the presidential debates. Even earlier this month, Twitter expanded its partnership with Bloomberg to offer nonstop video news broadcasts on its platform, including original reporting and live content.

Twitter broadcast more than 800 hours of live video in the first quarter of this year, and the deal with Bloomberg is expected to result in the 24/7 service by the coming fall.

In a recent report, BuzzFeed gave some pretty impressive numbers for Twitter’s live video programming:

Twitter’s NFL package averaged 3.5 million unique viewers and its Oscars pre and post shows brought in a combined 6.4 million. Meanwhile, its live inauguration day coverage from PBS netted some 8.6 million unique viewers. (BuzzFeed partnered with Twitter on an Election Day show that drew about 7.7 million unique viewers.)

Twitter lost its NFL deal to Amazon for the coming year, but it’s hard to argue that the company did not get its money’s worth out of the $10 million it paid for the rights to NFL games, though Twitter established itself as a quality live video site.

Shares of Twitter were last seen up 2.6% at $18.69 on Tuesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $14.76 and a 52-week range of $14.00 to $25.25.

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