Facebook Watch is the dedicated video hub on the world’s largest social media network. The company has invested in a slate of original programming for Watch including as many as 21 news shows. According to a new report, Facebook might be slashing news programming by only renewing a third of the 21 news shows that are currently available on Watch.
According to Digiday, Facebook Watch is making an attempt to maximize its $90 million budget for news and is now changing the partnership model to more of a TV network model. It’s canceling shows that don’t bring in enough viewers to justify investment in producing them.
So instead of fully funding a show’s production, Facebook will now look towards publishers to cover a bigger part of the production expenses. In exchange for that, it will let them sell some ad inventory. The report mentions that Facebook sold all of the ads previously and kept the money until the production costs had been recouped after which it would take up to a 45 percent share of the ad revenue.
This doesn’t mean that Facebook is giving up on news programming for Watch, only that this is a bid restructure how the business end of things behind news programming works.
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