X (formerly Twitter) is taking its next steps as a “video-first platform”, with a first look at its new, dedicated app for X videos on TV sets.
Which Twitter tried in the past, several times. But we’ll get to that.
The new X video app for smart TVs looks very similar to the YouTube app, and will enable easy navigation of video content that’s been uploaded to X.
Highlighting Tucker Carlson and the “All-In” podcast as key content is a choice. But examples aside, you can get a basic sense, in this short teaser, as to how the new video app will work.
X has told potential video ad partners that the new app will highlight trending content, powered by X’s advancing AI systems, while it will also include cross-device compatibility, enabling users to continue watching content as they shift from their phone to their TV.
X has also noted that it will be offering new ad options for the TV app at some stage, though they won’t be available at launch.
The addition makes sense, when you consider the broader rise of connected TV viewing. Last year, YouTube became the top streaming platform based on total watch time, with people now consuming more than a billion hours of YouTube content on their TVs every day.
The capacity to watch online content on your home TV set has opened up all new opportunities, for creators and the platforms, and X is hoping to tap into the same, with its own dedicated display of exclusive content, both via user uploads and creator partnerships, which is another element that it’s still building.
Though that effort has run into some challenges.
X’s first major video partnership announcement of its new “video-first” shift was with Tucker Carlson, whose exclusive X show has brought millions of viewers to the app. But Carlson has also rankled X management, by building his own subscription offering outside of the app. And after publicly championing Carlson’s work, more recently, X owner Elon Musk has criticized some of Carlson’s more radical ideas.
X’s second major video partner announcement was Paris Hilton, who’s yet to produce anything for the app. Hilton’s management company scaled back its X ad spend back in November, amid broader concerns about X’s moderation efforts, and it does seem that the partnership arrangement has soured somewhat as a result.
X also canceled its contract with former CNN anchor Don Lemon, another star that it had touted as part of its new video shift, after Lemon interviewed Musk, and Elon was less than happy with the results.
And while X does still have exclusive contracts with WWE and The Big 3 basketball league, its video content push hasn’t exactly been as transformation as it would like, at least not yet.
Still, video content drives the most engagement, and with X also trying to align with the broader TikTok consumption shift, a dedicated TV app does seemingly make sense.
Though as noted, Twitter has tried this approach before.
Back in 2016, Twitter made video a key focus of its growth strategy, which included the major step of signing exclusive contracts with the MLB, NFL and NBA to broadcast games directly in the app. That also saw Twitter launch dedicated apps for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Xbox One, in order to enable people to consume Twitter’s video content on their home TV sets.
Twitter had been trying to crack the code on this for years, which would then enable it to capitalize on its popularity as a “second-screen” destination, i.e. Twitter hosted the most TV show related discussion, and its view was that if it could merge the two, that would present it with a range of expanded possibilities.
But it didn’t happen.
For whatever reason, Twitter users preferred to keep the two experiences separate. And when the time came to renew these expensive rights deals, Twitter pulled out, opting to maintain smaller deals instead, which eventually also fizzled.
Of course, that was then, and this is now, and the digital content landscape has changed significantly since. But it’s unclear whether making X a video first platform is going to be what users respond to, despite X eyeing the revenue potential of video content and the capacity to build more opportunities by controlling its own broadcast slate.
And while X says that video viewing is up in the app, it’s also not entirely clear how much better video is performing. because X has changed the way that it tracks video views over time, which has skewed its comparative performance.
So when X says that video views of, say, sports related content are up 200%, that’s probably not the apples-to-apples comparison that X suggests.
Still, X also claims that 80% of user sessions now include video consumption, so clearly, a lot of people are watching video content in the app, and with the noted rise in connected TV consumption, it does make some sense.
It just depends on whether X will have enough content that people want to watch on the big screen, which will largely relate to its efforts to attract more creators to the app.
