CBS CBS Corp

By Yoree Koh and Alexandra Bruell 

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

Whether viewers and advertisers will stick around during the season remains to be seen.

While viewership ratings weren't yet available, anecdotal evidence suggested 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 on 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.

There was a slight delay between the CBS broadcast and the Twitter live-stream, but 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 win over marketers who were on the fence about Twitter's live-streaming ad pitch. Twitter, which paid $10 million for rights to the 10 Thursday night games this season, has been allotted about 15 local in-game ad spots for each. Advertisers such as Bank of America Corp., Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and Ford Motor Co. have bought sponsorship packages, which were priced between $1 million to $8 million.

Initial reactions from some participating advertisers were promising.

"I think we're feeling pretty good about it from a business standpoint. I know we're feeling great about it from an experience standpoint," said Lou Paskalis, senior vice president and enterprise media executive at Bank of America, adding that the Twitter live-stream could open up new ways for brands to interact with viewers during the game.

Mr. Paskalis said he had expected Thursday's live-stream to draw about 1.5 million viewers. Twitter had informed him that Bank of America's ads during the Thursday night game had a 98% completion rate. "That makes us really happy."

"The free aspect is huge," said Francois Lee, executive vice president and investment director at MDC & Partners media agency Assembly. By offering 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," RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney said 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 16:12 ET (20:12 GMT)

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