Twitter just made it a lot easier to watch its live video streams on the big screen: The company launched new apps for Apple TV, Amazon’s Fire TV and Microsoft’s Xbox One game console Thursday.
The launches come just in time for Twitter’s live streams of Thursday Night Football, which will begin this coming Thursday with the New York Jets facing off against the Buffalo Bills. Twitter struck a deal with the NFL in April to stream a total of 10 Thursday Night Football games worldwide.
Other live streams available via the apps include content from MLB Advanced Media, NBA, Pac 12 Networks, Campus Insiders, Cheddar and Bloomberg News. The apps will also offer access to a selection of tweets, Vines and Twitter Moments, and Apple TV and Fire TV users will be able to watch select Periscope live streams. And on Apple TV, there will be a side-by-side experience that essentially allows users to watch tweeted video highlights next to live to streaming video.
Twitter has been quite busy in recent months inking a flurry of deals for live streaming content, and is clearly hoping to attract larger audience sizes with access to bigger screens. Of course, much of that content is already available via regular TV networks in the U.S.. So why would viewers tune to Twitter instead of watching the games through their TV provider?
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Twitter’s answer seems to be that it is targeting cord cutters. The company emphasized that users won’t need a pay TV subscription to tune into any of the live streams shown via the app, with Twitter CFO Anthony Noto saying: “We’re excited to introduce this new experience to people, without requiring a paywall or having to log in to Twitter.”
Update: 8:28am: This post was updated with more details on the Twitter app experience on Apple TV.
