Streaming news aggregator Haystack News will launch dedicated channels focused on the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention later this month.
The company announced the new feature in a press release sent to reporters early Thursday morning.
Haystack News, once known as Haystack TV, aggregates local news stories from broadcast and digital media partners, presenting them alongside national and international news content.
Earlier this year, Haystack News experimented with linear streams by launching a section dedicated to Super Tuesday news coverage. The move helped spur growth at Haystack News; the company reported a 145 percent increase in customer use between May 2019 and May 2020, though the precise number of customers served by Haystack News remains unknown.
“Haystack News usage and engagement has been surging for several years, but has reached new record levels in 2020 due to the pandemic and with this being a presidential election yea,” Daniel Barreto, Haystack’s co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement.
Now the company is looking to replicate that success with special coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions. Haystack News says it will offer live coverage of major speeches interspersed with on-demand content aggregated from over 300 local broadcasters and a handful of national and international news partners, including CBS News, ABC News, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News.
“Haystack is the preferred [Internet-based streaming] platform for news and analysis, and we are delighted to make it even easier and more convenient for our users to consume news content and perspectives for the upcoming national conventions from all over the country,” Barreto said.
The Democratic National Convention kicks off on August 17, followed by the Republican National Convention one week later.
Haystack News is supported on a wide number of devices, including smartphones and tablets running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android; streaming TV devices from Apple, Google, Roku and Amazon; smart TVs built by LG, Samsung, Sony and TCL; and on web browsers at haystack.tv.
