Twitter Courting TV Networks To “Amplify” Revenues

Twitter executives are in New York this week (“Ad Week”) pitching TV networks on its ad products, especially its second screen ad program “Amplify.” According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter is positioning Amplify as part of a bundled TV ad sale:

With Amplify, networks post short video replays on Twitter in near-real time. The video is sponsored by a brand. The network and Twitter each get a cut of the ad proceeds. 

Amplify was originally introduced earlier this year.

TV networks and entertainment companies aggressively market themselves on social media. However Twitter and its hashtags have managed to insinuate themselves into media industry consciousness in ways that other digital channels and publishers have not.

In advance of its IPO Twitter is going after brand budgets that have traditionally favored TV advertising above other forms of media, especially digital. However Twitter hasn’t yet seen a major bump in revenue from media and entertainment promotion on its site  — hence the effort to develop ad products specifically for video content.

Twitter revenues this year are expected to reach nearly $600 million. Facebook is also courting TV advertisers with an anticipated “addressable TV” video ad product.

A recent study by Nielsen showed that after crossing some “statistically significant” tweet-threshold TV show ratings increased. In the study there was a reciprocal relationship between tweets and ratings. Live TV ratings boosted tweets and tweets in turn boosted ratings according to Nielsen.