Bloomberg’s TicToc news platform reportedly plans to launch an over-the-top video news service later this year.
Bowed in 2017, TicToc features news on a 24-hour cycle via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, Amazon Echo, podcast and newsletter. The platform has posted 17,000 additional video news spots thus far in 2019 than it did during the same period last year.
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Bloomberg is opting for OTT after internal data suggested consumers who stream at least 10 hours of video weekly don’t like how news is delivered online, according to Jean Ellen Cowgill, managing director, TicToc.
“The mission is to live across all platforms that make up someone’s daily news diet,” Cowgill told Digiday. “If you look at the projection for the OTT ad market, the writing on the wall is pretty clear. There’s a lot of competition because it’s the next big explosion, we want to be part of that.”
As expected, the bulk of TicToc’s user demo skews from 21 to 44-years-old, the prime OTT video viewer – and a draw for advertisers, according to Ben Sinden, consultant at Sinden Media.
“If TicToc can establish its identity and grow a wider audience on existing platforms, an OTT product could be the logical next step,” Sinden said. “Given Bloomberg’s data, tech, scale and heritage, it has as good a chance to cut through to a streaming news audience as anything before it.”