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Facebook and Twitter Will Live Stream Presidential and VP Debates

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This year's presidential debates are sure to get a record viewership, and many of those viewers will be watching online. ABC News announced yesterday that it will partner with Facebook to live stream its debate coverage on the social network. This includes the debates themselves, as well as pre- and post-debate programming. The first presidential debate is Monday at 9 PM ET, and will last 90 minutes.

The ABC News-Facebook relationship should be mutually beneficial, as Facebook will feed back information on trending keywords and viewer sentiment which will inform ABC's coverage. ABC's Facebook live stream will be ad-free.

Today, Bloomberg and Twitter announced a partnership of their own, with Twitter live streaming Bloomberg's debate coverage. As with the ABC News stream, this includes the debates, as well as pre- and post-debate coverage. Unlike the ABC News stream, the Bloomberg stream will carry ads, with Twitter and Bloomberg splitting the revenue.

These announcements are a continuation of deals from earlier this summer: ABC News partnered with Facebook during the Republican and Democratic conventions, while Twitter live streamed both conventions with CBS News.

“Given the tremendous viewership we saw across the ABC News Facebook pages throughout the conventions, we’re thrilled to continue the partnership and bring ABC News’ wide-ranging live coverage direct to users’ News Feeds for the debates,” said Colby Smith, vice president of digital at ABC News.

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