Report: Twitter close to TV deal
San Francisco - Twitter has long aimed to offer its users far more than 140 character tweets. It already has introduced video and photo services.
Now the micro-blogging site is close to signing content deals with Viacom and NBCUniversal that would bring content from those TV networks to the social media site, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.
According to the report, Twitter would stream content from the networks to user's smartphones and share the ad revenue generated. The deals could be signed as early as next month, the report said.
The move would mesh easily with Twitter's youthful demographic, which is already keenly interested in TV content, with a third of active Twitter users commenting on TV fare, according to a Nielsen report.
Twitter already has agreements in place with ESPN, Weather Channel LLC, and Turner Broadcasting System.
Twitter has been making a concerted effort to expand from short messaging service to a fully fledged media platform to increase the amount of time users spend on the site and the amount of advertising they view. The company, which has around 200 million users, last week introduced a streaming music app.//DPA
