Twitch may be known for its mighty gaming prowess, but the streaming platform continues to diversify its content with TwitchPresents—a dedicated channel for programmatic TV marathons. A number of TV programs have aired on Twitch to positive community reception, from single episodes of Silicon Valley and Mr. Robot to marathons of classic shows such as Julia Child’s The French Chef, Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting, and the Pokémon animated series.
It’s Morphin Time!
Beginning on March 14, TwitchPresents will host a 17-hour marathon of the iconic Saban’s Power Rangers TV series, spanning 23 seasons and featuring all 831 episodes. Viewers will have a multitude of options for enjoying the show, which include co-streaming on their own channels. Those who subscribe to the TwitchPresents channel will receive access to exclusive Power Rangers-themed emotes for use in the chat, and the livestream is timed to get fans excited for the Saban’s Power Rangers film headed to theaters March 24.
“Guided by feedback from our community, Twitch has been focusing on content beyond gaming that nurtures the culture around their interests, whether it be anime, art, cooking or pop culture, in general,” said Annie Berrones, product marketing director at Twitch in a statement. “As an iconic sci-fi, superhero franchise that achieved legacy status over the past two decades, Power Rangers fits right into our community’s wheelhouse.”
In a different part of the digital world, the relationship between interactive livestreaming and television has been a happy one thus far, as proven by some eight million Game of Thrones fans working together to reveal the season seven premiere date on Facebook Live Wednesday. The premiere date was placed inside a block of ice and viewers could blow fire at it by following instructions, such as typing keywords into the chat and attracted over 100,000 viewers at any given time. While livestreams tap into a fear of missing out, the other side of the coin is that anything can go wrong. After about 15 minutes, the stream went dark and HBO ended up revealing the date (July 16) after failed attempts at bringing the stream back online. It was a cool idea, anyway.
Twitch Gets More Social
Twitch is definitely trying to keep viewers glued to their screens forever, from TV marathons to a new social media network called Pulse. Now streamers and viewers can interact outside of livestreams, share content and more from the Twitch site or mobile app. To further bring its community together, the company has rebranded its Curse communication app as an all-new Twitch desktop app that includes community servers, voice and video messaging as well as game content distribution. The public beta for this new desktop app will begin on March 16.
“Since the Twitch community thrives on building solid and meaningful connections with each other, we have been hard at work building products that address this need,” said Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch in a statement. “The Twitch Desktop App—which features all of the elements people love about the Curse app, such as screen sharing, voice and video calling, and community server creation—is now bolstered by Twitch features. This includes Friends, Whispers, activity sharing, and will soon serve as a game library for purchases fulfilled by Twitch. The result is a one-stop shop for connecting members of our community.”