BitTorrent has revealed that it will launch its much-touted live news network on July 18 at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland, Ohio.
The news comes less than a week after the company revealed that it had hired a former Vice and CNN producer to head up the new BitTorrent News streaming channel. Serving as news director, Harrison Bohrman will lead a team of six, which includes a triumvirate of former Al Jazeera reporters and producers, presumably made possible by Al Jazeera America’s decision to close shop earlier this year.
BitTorrent is best known as the company that develops the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol, but it has been pulling away from associations with illegal file sharing and piracy to position itself as a media distribution company. Back in May, the company launched BitTorrent Live, a multichannel video streaming app for Apple TV that subsequently landed on OS X, with more platforms to follow. It’s within this app that BitTorrent News will live.
According to a company statement, BitTorrent News will be “the destination for an informed, independent voice on the news in real time as news breaks.”
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The network will feature up to 12 hours of live coverage during each day of the Republican convention, with commentary on key developments and coverage of the speeches, which will be interspersed with input and analysis from guests — all in real time.
“Television news has been stagnating for some time,” said Erik Schwartz, vice president of media for BitTorrent. “It’s having trouble appealing to a generation that grew up online. We’re building BitTorrent News to solve that problem. We are using superior data and tools and the Silicon Valley ethos of ‘lean startup’ to build a nimble news organization that will learn quickly from user behavior.”
