Twitter to livestream general election debates with Bloomberg Media

One of the most anticipated live events in decades is going to stream live on Twitter.

Twitter will livestream the first general-election debate on Sept. 26 as well as the proceeding ones thanks to a partnership with Bloomberg Media. The news comes just a day after ABC News announced it would stream its coverage on Facebook. Other networks have yet to reveal their digital plans.

Twitter has already become a go-to destination for political news, discussion and the not-so-occasional spat. The campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have sparred on Twitter on a regular basis.

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This is the first time Twitter is hosting a live video feed of a presidential debate. It comes a long way from the first 2012 presidential debate, which was the most watched and tweeted in history, where 67.2 million people watched on TV at home and 10 million tweets were sent.

With Facebook Live, any network can choose to simulcast its coverage to Facebook. Twitter's technology, however, is closed. For the debates, Twitter selected Bloomberg Media as the exclusive streaming partner. It is an extension of a partnership to stream Bloomberg Television programs, which the companies announced in July.

"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," Bloomberg Media CEO Justin B. Smith said in a statement. "Bloomberg’s non-partisan political coverage stands out from the crowd for its independence and quality."

In addition to the 90-minute debates, Twitter and Bloomberg will stream 30 minutes of programming before and after, led by Bloomberg Politics Managing Editors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.

The stream will be available at debates.twitter.com, a new URL that will go live closer to the debates, and on Twitter Moments and Bloomberg's Twitter account @bpolitics. Similar to Twitter's other partnerships like Thursday night football, a stream of related tweets will run side-by-side with the live video feed. Unlike with Facebook's stream, viewers do not need a Twitter account to watch.

It's not surprising that Twitter is hosting a live stream of the debates. The company's stock has drastically fallen over the last two years amid stagnant user growth and an inability to turn a significant profit, leading investors and board members to question its future.

Two-time CEO Jack Dorsey and his executive team are betting that live video will position the network as a more valuable destination for live content, where people already go to share and read thoughts on news, entertainment, sports and politics, for example, and politicians share campaign trail updates and comment on their opponents.

"Twitter is where the 2016 presidential election is happening every single day," said Anthony Noto, Twitter's chief financial officer, in a statement. "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.”

Twitter did stream the Republican and Democratic national conventions via a partnership with CBSN, which owned the streaming rights. CBS is also broadcasting the debate but has yet to announce its digital plans. CBS and Twitter did not release viewership and tweet data around the conventions.

With this deal, Twitter is seeking to support an engaged and young audience. Over half of the tweets sent about the 2016 election have been from people 25 years old and younger, according to Twitter.