Twitter expands premium video content; partners with 12 Indian content players

To compete with Google's YouTube, Facebook’s Watch and Instagram’s IGTV, Twitter has strengthened its Video offering by announcing over 50 premium video content collaborations in Asia Pacific, 12 of which are with the Indian content players.

Red Chillies Entertainment, Vh1 Supersonic, Comic Con India, Network 18, Scoopwhoop, NDTV, Filmfare and CricBuzz are among the 12 Indian partners that Twitter will collaborate with to bring new content to audiences in the country and opportunities for Indian advertisers.

The move will bring hundreds of hours of live stream and video highlights across sports, entertainment and news to the platform. The announcement expands the premium video content available on Twitter to advertisers in Asia Pacific and builds on extensions of existing global and regional content deals.

At the Twitter Fronts event in Singapore, Twitter executives, including Global Vice-President of Content Partnerships Kay Madati and Vice-President of Asia Pacific Maya Hari, presented the content partnerships to brand and agency partners in the region.

“Content is happening now at Twitter and we have proven through the efficacy of the partnerships we have crafted that content programming and distribution on Twitter is an essential part of any media company’s audience engagement and content monetisation strategies,” said Kay Madati, Global VP of Content Partnerships, Twitter. “Asia Pacific is accelerating growth for Twitter. Our unique and strategic value proposition that positions Twitter as a complement, not competitor, to traditional media companies has delivered great success and we seek to drive forward with more live stream and premium video content partnerships in the region.”

“Video continues to be an important way to stay informed and engaged on Twitter, especially for the younger millennial audience in Asia Pacific,” said Maya Hari, Vice-President of Asia Pacific, Twitter. “Building on the success of our premium video content launch at All That Matters last year, we are proud to expand our live stream and video highlights programming that is brand safe and will appeal to the audience and advertisers in APAC. The move strengthens Twitter’s presence and partnerships in the region, sharing with the world what’s happening right now in Asia Pacific and for global audiences to talk about it.”

Entertainment partners in India include Comic Con India (live), Diwali Culture (live), Filmfare (live), Red Chillies Entertainment (live) and Vh1 Supersonic (live).

“ScoopWhoop has consistently leveraged the immediacy of Twitter to help people discover and share stories that are interesting and relevant in the moment. Now we are excited to take this partnership to a new level by creating our first ever Live Diwali show exclusively on Twitter. The show aims to capture what’s happening in India during Diwali while it’s happening and Twitter is clearly the ideal partner,” said Rishi Mukherjee, COO and Co-Founder, ScoopWhoop.

“Vh1 Supersonic has seen phenomenal engagement on Twitter over the years and has been one of our most engaged and active social media platforms. Twitter has played a pivotal role in helping generating buzz and excitement for the festival across the year. 2018 saw our collaboration with Twitter translate beautifully on-ground to create live content across the three days of the festival with Indian and global artists with the flagship Blue Room property. With the 2019 edition as well, we are very excited to see an extension in our partnership with Twitter to build brand Vh1 Supersonic on a larger scale," added Saugato Bhowmik, Business Head, Voot Kids OTT Service, Consumer Products and Live Entertainment, Vh1 Supersonic.

The sports partnerships in India include players like Cricbuzz (live) and Gaurav Kapur.

The news partners are Auto On Quint (live), Budget with Network18 (live), India Today Aaj Tak Finance (live), NDTV Car And Bike (live) and NDTV Tech.

(L-R) Soumya Parmar, Head of Video Solutions and Agency Development, Twitter India; Amrita Tripathi, Head, News Partnerships, Twitter India; and Avinash Kaul, Chief Operating Officer Network18 and Managing Editor A+E Networks | TV18, at Twitter Fronts event in Singapore

“Network18 is delighted to strengthen its partnership with Twitter. With India’s largest news network in its fold, Network18 today reaches out to 670 million television news viewers through 20 news channels in 15 Indian Languages. Its array of digital properties reaches 32 million news consumers on the internet. With our massive reach and Twitter's real-time conversational capability, this collaboration sets a benchmark proposition for prospective advertisers and business partners. We believe this partnership will amplify the digital reach of a brand or idea to the next level of visibility and engagement,” said Avinash Kaul, Chief Operating Officer Network18 and Managing Editor A+E Networks | TV18.

"We have found great value in our partnership with Twitter, especially around elections. The platform gives our content additional reach and meaningful engagement with the younger voters and opinion makers,” said Kalli Purie, Vice-Chairperson, India Today Group.

“It was terrific to have NDTV partner with Twitter for an election result seeped in drama. We offered a simple graphic showing real-time results on Twitter (auto responder) that ensures we delivered the latest twist and turn to our users,” said Suparna Singh, Group CEO, NDTV.