A Quick Note on AM2DM, Buzzfeed’s Live Morning Show On Twitter
On Friday, Buzzfeed announced that it is launching a morning talk show called AM2DM, that will go live every weekday at 10 a.m. ET on Twitter. This show continues Buzzfeed and Twitter’s strong push into video content, marking the publisher’s first entry into live morning show.
This hour-long show goes live on weekdays at 10 a.m., which makes it significantly later than the traditional morning shows on TV, and therefore would likely attract a younger audience who either don’t hold traditional work schedules or enjoy a flexible work environment to tune in at work. The show will be hosted by two male hosts, also a departure from most morning shows, and is designed to be heavily interactive with the live audience via comments and replies.
Buzzfeed also made a choice to launch this show on Twitter, likely due to their standing content partnerships announced at NewFronts in May, rather than choosing Facebook Live, where they may get more viewers. With more and more U.S, TV viewers cutting the cord and using social media as their primary source of news, we expect more news shows like this to pop up on live-streaming platforms.
It is worth noting that Amazon also ran an ambitious daily live show called Style Code Live focused on fashion and beauty. The show had a bit of buzz when it first launched, but it got stuck in its format, and the buzz quickly fizzled before being canceled after about a year. This new Twitter show, coming from Buzzfeed, a master of spotting and co-opting pop culture trends and memes, should be able to maintain the buzz a little longer.
Another interesting thing to note here is that, unlike other morning shows, AM2DM will be reaching English-speaking audiences in other countries as well (although it wouldn’t be morning for most of them). However, based on the first episode aired this morning, the show’s topic selection seems to be rather U.S-centric and heavy on domestic politics, so it looks like they are not really trying to appeal to a global audience for now.
For brands, the show’s ad offering seems pretty standard, albeit on the pricier side for a new show that hasn’t proved its audience yet. According to AdAge:
“The commercial format will also resemble that of TV, albeit with fewer ads. There will be eight minutes of ads in the hour with four two-minute breaks. The spots will be a standard 30 seconds… Ad packages in the show range from $250,000 to half-a-million dollars or more.”
Beyond that, there is no mention of a way for brands to sponsor a segment or do product placement as of yet. But this being a Buzzfeed production, one can safely assume that such brand opportunities will materialize in time.
Overall, AM2DM has potential to reach a specific audience that skews young and tech-savvy, likely to be an avid Twitter user and always on the hunt for new information. Beyond that, the show’s nature, platform, and timeslot all limit its accessibility and hamper its appeal to other demographics.
If you think that audience matches with the target demo that your brand is trying to reach, then by all means, give the show a chance. Otherwise, you will probably see a better ROI spending their Twitter budget on a top-of-the-feed video takeover, which our recent study found to be the most effective way to reach the Twitter audience.
