Second Screen TV Competition Expands At Cannes

At the Cannes Lions conference, Twitter made the case for its Amplify program, that generates buzz around big TV shows by introducing its latest recruit: Viacom. The pilot program for the partnership will be the MTV Video Music Awards on August 25th, which was one of the first events to generate an authentically trending social media presence. Brands working with Twitter Amplify now include ESPN, Turner Sports, and the NBA, as well as specific campaigns by Ford, AT&T and Coca-Cola. Also pitching at Cannes was Shazam, who announced the “Shazam Engagement Rate,” which is a proprietary metric to judge the effectiveness of TV ads driving people to tag using the app. It will combine data from Nielsen with its own stats, with the goal of showing which ads are most effective at persuading viewers to interact. 

Amazon Streams Viacom’s Kids Shows

After a deal between Netflix and Viacom expired last month, Amazon swept in to clean up the scraps, which included Viacom’s children’s programs like Dora the Explorer and Comedy Central shows like Key and Peele. Amazon made the announcement that it will be streaming these shows through Prime Instant Video this morning, and claimed that they’ll be adding more than 3,900 episodes of TV to their streaming program. This, in combination with Amazon’s announcement that they will film five new original series shows, puts them directly at odds with Netfilx, their main competitor.