Twitter plans to eventually air live video 24/7

Is Twitter the new TV? The social network hopes to become something resembling that, with plans revealed by CFO and COO Anthony Noto to eventually be airing live video content 24 hours a day, 7 days per week via both its website and app. Noto discussed the plans with BuzzFeed News, ahead of the company’s earnings report Wednesday morning.

Twitter already plays host to a number of live shows, including programming from Bloomberg, BuzzFeed itself (election coverage, for example) and live sports. It held a deal with the NFL for Thursday night games last season, which will be taken over by Amazon this year, but that isn’t going to significantly derail Twitter’s plans to eventually offer up content around the clock.

Live video has been an audience draw for Twitter, and some of its product efforts, including prominent placement of streaming content in the mobile app when available, and the introduction of an Apple TV app with a primary focus on video, has helped get those eyeballs. BuzzFeed notes that its own election coverage ended up bringing in around 7.7 million unique viewers, for instance.

Twitter morphing into a cord cutter alternative for 24 hour news and information channels, peppered with unique events, has big potential in terms of its ability to woo and keep prominent, lucrative advertisers. The main question now will be whether they can build a quality content pipeline to fill the days, and whether they can manage to do so before the ongoing shift to digital delivery models for traditional TV service providers reaches its zenith.