CBS CBS Corp

By Yoree Koh and Alexandra Bruell 

Twitter Inc. can breathe a sigh of relief after its high-profile, live-streaming debut of a Thursday night National Football League game went smoothly.

Whether or not viewers and advertisers will stick around during the season remains to be seen.

While viewership ratings aren't yet available, anecdotal evidence shows that viewers were generally pleased with Twitter's stream of the CBS Corp. feed of the game between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills. The live-stream of the game was available on Twitter's mobile app and website as well as Apple Inc.'s Apple TV, Amazon.com Inc.'s Amazon Fire and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox One.

Thursday night's game was a coming-out party of sorts for Twitter's live-streaming strategy, the cornerstone of its plan to become the premier destination for live events. Twitter is trying to appeal to advertisers by capitalizing on its strength as a real-time service and the growing trend of cord-cutting viewers.

Aside from a slight delay between the CBS broadcast and the Twitter live-stream, viewers largely complimented the high-definition quality of the game that appeared to stream for most without interruption. Football fans who otherwise wouldn't have had access to the game gave a thumbs-up, and users who had forgotten they had Twitter accounts had a reason to come back.

Some users requested certain features, such as only showing tweets about the team they support in the accompanying Twitter feed. That feed, curated by the company, included tweets with the hashtag #TNF or those that mentioned one of the teams or players.

"It was exciting to see how the experience played out on Twitter with how fans reacted to the first [Thursday night] football live stream," a Twitter spokesman said.

The positive reviews may help convince marketers who were on the fence about Twitter's live-streaming ad pitch to participate. Twitter, which was allotted about 15 local in-game ad spots during each of the 10 Thursday night games, sold sponsorship packages priced between $1 million to $8 million.

Advertisers such as Bank of America Inc., Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and Ford Motor Co. have bought the ad packages.

"The free aspect is huge," said Francois Lee, executive vice president and investment director at MDC media agency Assembly. With free streaming on the go, and the ability to watch on the big screen through Apple TV and Amazon, Twitter is directly competing with networks such as CBS and Comcast Corp.'s NBC, he said.

At an investor conference Thursday, CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves said that before too long he expects to strike a deal with the NFL to stream games on its video-streaming site CBS All Access.

Others who work with advertisers were more cautious. "I feel as though it's a nice compliment to the broadcast, but hardly a seismic change in how NFL is consumed," said David Campanelli, senior vice president and director of video investment at media agency Horizon Media, which works with brands such as Geico insurance and Corona beer.

While Thursday night's technological feat was a success, plenty of questions remain. Do viewers enjoy watching the game with running Twitter commentary alongside a smaller screen, or did they opt to minimize the social feed to watch the game full-screen? And after the initial buzz wears off, will this become a bona fide alternative to watching broadcasts that are available elsewhere?

"I think the Venn diagram of those who want to watch the NFL on a portion of a small phone screen while tweeting is pretty small," said RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney in an email.

Thursday night football games last season averaged more than 17 million viewers on CBS and the NFL Network, according to Nielsen.

Write to Yoree Koh at yoree.koh@wsj.com and Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 16, 2016 14:23 ET (18:23 GMT)

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