Yes you read that title right. Reports from Busniess Insider India indicate that Facebook, the social media company, wants to produce its own TV shows just like Hulu and Netflix do.
This comes days after it was revealed that YouTube is planning to produce its own original shows. Twitter has also gotten more serious with videos, with the company live streaming news and sports events directly from the platform.
Back to Facebook, the report says that Facebook plans to launch 24 original shows as from mid-June. According to the report, the company has been in talks with A-List celebrities and production companies to produce these shows. The shows will range from short 5 minutes episodes that are said to refresh every 24 hours to fully fledged shows of upto 30 minutes per episode.
Business Insider India details that their source claims the shows coming to Facebook will be the caliber of House of Cards and Scandal (for the 30 minutes shows). The shorter shows will be targeted at teens and one such show has already been approved.
Facebook will also make a play at Virtual Reality with a dating show from Conde Nast Entertainment. The show will feature people going on dates in VR first before they actually meet in person. Loneliness in 2017?
Ads and more ads
Facebook is slowly turning into an advertisement company like Google. The report indicates that users will not pay to get access to the shows but will be served with mid-roll ads instead.
As of now, Facebook is purchasing exclusive rights to certain shows, with plans to recover its costs through the ads. The report also says that in future Facebook will move toward a revenue-model for scripted shows, which is what YouTube currently does with its content creators.
A new video tab
Note that Facebook already has a stand-alone video app for the Apple TV and a few other platforms. The company is said to also to be working on a revamp of their current videos tab and this is where their new shows will live.
According to the report, a major concern among Facebook’s investors is whether people will actually want to watch longer videos on Facebook – a concern that Facebook is yet to address.
With all these “social media” companies running after videos like they have done (SnapChat is also producing its own shows), it is clear that the future of social media is in videos. I am not so sure how the uptake of Facebook shows will be (not the official name), but you’re the user, so let us know if that is something you would consider.
