James R | On 20, Jan 2019

Twitter has given a second second season order to the social network’s morning talk show, AM to DM.

The series, which launched in 2017, brought together Twitter and the online media giant, with an hour-long weekday news show targeted at millennial streamers. It sees Saeed Jones and Isaac Fitzgerald discuss trending topics and the day’s big news stories, with guests joining them each episode. Last year, 200 episodes were released, with over 500 guests, ranging from Chrissy Teigen to Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The most engaged moments, according to Buzzfeed, were Miranda dropping First Burn (from Hamilton) and Noah Centineo, of Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, given a shout-out to Burgess co-star Shannon Purser, of Stranger Things fame. As the show has continued, it has added on-demand replays and highlights for Twitter users.

As is the case with a lot of streaming programmes, it’s not entirely clear how big an audience the show has, particularly when social platforms measure views and engagement in different ways. At present, the show has just 24.4 thousand followers on Twitter. Nonetheless, AM to DM appears to have been a success with users, with Twitter claiming the show averages 400,000 views per episode, 101 million impressions across 2018 and an average of 3 million impressions per week.

Data on how long each person watched for hasn’t been revealed, with Buzzfeed merely telling Variety that it generates “millions” of views every week. Twitter’s willingness to invest in further episodes, though, shouldn’t be taken lightly, as the social network tries to position its video content as distinct, and distinctly topical, from other sites.

Twitter has renewed the programme through to the end of 2019.

Shani Hilton, BuzzFeed News VP of news and programming, confirmed to Variety that it is “making money”, which is a challenge in itself.

“Overall, the people we’re trying to reach are the people who read and share our stories and want an in-depth information,” Hilton explained. “My goal is to continue help increase awareness of the show.”

Plans for 2019 include tie-ins to awards nominations, cultural events such as Black History Month, and a back-to-school season.

“The creative, direct and welcoming tone that comes so naturally to Saeed and Isaac has struck a cord with their audience on Twitter,” Nick Sallon, Head of U.S. news partnerships at Twitter, also told Variety. “We’re thrilled that ‘AM to DM’ will continue to grow in 2019 as both a trusted news source for Twitter users and a reliable and compelling way for advertisers to connect with what’s happening.”

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