The agreement is an expansion of the partnership Twitter and Bloomberg Media announced in July to stream select Bloomberg Television programs.
Twitter will stream Bloomberg Television’s live broadcast of the scheduled U.S. Presidential and Vice Presidential debates, beginning on Monday, September 26th. The stream will also include special Bloomberg Politics programming thirty minutes before and after each debate, which will be led by Bloomberg Politics Managing Editors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Additional Bloomberg Politics talent, reporting, and expert analysis will contribute to the coverage.
"Twitter is where the 2016 presidential election is happening every single day," said Anthony Noto, Twitter's chief financial officer. "Livestreaming the debates with Bloomberg combined with the live commentary and conversation on Twitter will create a one-screen experience at the center of the action unlike any other.”
"We are thrilled to extend our partnership with Twitter to include our coverage of the U.S. presidential debates during this unprecedented and remarkable U.S. election," said Bloomberg Media CEO Justin B. Smith. "Bloomberg’s non-partisan political coverage stands out from the crowd for its independence and quality. By leveraging the power of Twitter’s enormous real-time platform for reaction and analysis, this partnership will provide viewers the opportunity to watch and interact with the news coming from this fall’s debates as they happen live on smartphones, computers and TVs."
The stream will be available globally at debates.twitter.com, in Twitter Moments or on @bpolitics. Bloomberg is Twitter's exclusive streaming partner for the debates.
Debate schedule:
Monday, September 26th, First Presidential Debate
Tuesday, October 4th, Vice Presidential Debate
Sunday, October 9th, Second Presidential Debate
Wednesday, October 19th, Third Presidential Debate
Additional Bloomberg Politics' debate coverage will include special editions of “With All Due Respect” (5-6 PM ET) shot live on location and hosted by Halperin and Heilemann, as well as a number of short-form digital videos.
In total, says Bloomberg, Tweets sent during both the first Democratic and Republican primary debates in 2016 received over one billion impressions, and over half of all Tweets sent about the 2016 election are from people 25 years old and younger. There were ten million Tweets sent during the first U.S. Presidential debate of the 2012 election cycle, which was the most watched U.S. Presidential debate in history.
