The social media revolution will no longer be televised, at least not with premium content. 

Five years after making a measured but somewhat bold entry into the Streaming Wars, Meta is shuttering the original content arm of Facebook Watch. 

Really, all the social media giant is doing now is axing the one show from the venture anyone ever ended up recognizing, Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk. 

The move, which includes the exit of Facebook Watch programming and development chief Mina Lefevre, is part of a mass layoff of 10,000 Meta workers. 

The Penske showbiz trades first reported on the change. 

Facebook — well, back in 2018, when it was still called “Facebook” — worked to make a splash for Watch, enlisting benchwarmer talent from premium cable networks to create pro-looking original comedies and dramas, all of which could be commented on and shared by users across the social platform's global community. 

Examples: The widow-themed drama Sorry For Your Loss starring Elizabeth Olsen, and the reality show Ball In the Family, starring current NBA players Lonzo and LaMello Ball, along with their overbearing sports-parent father. (You can still watch these shows on Meta, but they're not making any new episodes. 

As Google and YouTube quickly discovered with their own abandoned original content play from the same era, good TV is expensive and hard to pull off.  

As the daughter of immigrants, Mina Lefevre was expected to follow a very narrow career path: doctor, lawyer or engineer. Lefevre was duly obedient, double-majoring in economics and integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley and studying for the MCATs when she suddenly took a sharp and lasting swerve.

“I remember having this moment thinking I really want to pursue my dream,” said Lefevre, head of development and programming at Meta, where she oversees the development and production of original series for Facebook’s video platform and spearheads funded original content that lives across Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.

That dream, spurred by the film theory courses she’d loved in college, involved pursuing entertainment in some form. “That was literally the last thing my parents wanted me to do,” Lefevre said of venturing into the wildly unstable fields of independent feature films in San Francisco, and then temp jobs in television in Los Angeles. “My parents were mortified.”

Rising Through TV Ranks

Eventually, she found steady work, climbing the ladder at places like ABC Family (where she became VP, development and programming, helping launch the channel while developing shows like Pretty Little Liars) and then MTV (where she was head of scripted, doubling the number of such projects with shows like Faking It, Scream and Finding Carter).

Her Iran-born parents were mollified, though, when she first held a job title of director. “My mom kept telling everyone I was a director,” Lefevre said. “It’s very hard to describe what an executive actually does.”

Lefevre said all that studying in college did pay off, as her economics courses gave her a deeper understanding of budgeting. “I probably stick my head too much into budgets for my head of production,” she said with a laugh.

While she has shifted from linear to streaming and has largely moved away from scripted, Lefevre said her past stops also provided the necessary skill sets. “Content and creative are really at the core of what I do,” she said. “What’s changing is the way you’re telling the story and giving it to the consumer. It’s exciting to work at a place able to figure out new ways to communicate that and work with talent to reach their fan base even more directly.”

Since guiding Facebook Watch to its debut back in 2017, Lefevre has steered to screens of various sizes programming like the Daytime Emmy Award-nominated series Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris and a spinoff with Gloria Estefan and her family. The lineup cuts across genres to include talk shows, reality, sports and docuseries. High-profile talent has come on board, such as Steve Harvey (STEVE), Taraji P. Henson (Piece of Mind with Taraji), Courteney Cox (9 Months with Courteney Cox) and Stephen Curry (Stephen vs. The Game). She has also developed youth-oriented programming for Messenger’s Watch Together with the likes of Cardi B and Post Malone. 

Ricky Van Veen, head of global creative strategy for media partnerships at Meta, said Lefevre has made the shift seamlessly. “Mina’s ability to adapt her strong creative instincts from linear to digital and now even the metaverse is truly impressive,” he noted, adding, “She’s beloved by internal colleagues and industry peers alike for her honest yet warm ‘get things done’ attitude.”

Lefevre said adapting comes with the territory and not just because traditional notions like half-hour and hour formats fall away at Meta. When the company started Facebook Watch, the challenge was to explain what it was trying to do in creating programming that would have a uniquely intimate relationship with an audience and build a community, a social-media water-cooler conversation. 

Then, of course, the field got more crowded. “It’s incredibly competitive out there now,” she said. “The piece of the pie is getting smaller.”

Setting a New Path at Meta

Still, Lefevre is confident the company has found a “unique” new path that they’ll be pushing: “A big point of difference for us is that we’re looking toward a One Meta approach — to find content for all the surfaces, from Facebook to Instagram to Messenger to the richer and more immersive experiences in VR and AR, so the audience can have whatever experience they want.”

The new approach is a win-win-win, she said, benefiting not just audiences and Meta but also the talent who will achieve much broader distribution. 

“We’ll be serving so many surfaces and finding the best ways for consumers to watch content and form a community around it,” she said. “That, to me, is exciting.” ■

Streaming service Facebook Watch in November will launch a new talk show hosted by global entertainer Becky G, the service said Thursday.

The series, Face to Face with Becky G, will feature conversations with the singer/actress/activist's favorite artists, icons and friends relevant to her generation, the Latinx community and beyond, according to Facebook Watch. The new series is executive produced by Jesse Collins Entertainment and Becky G’s B Yourself Productions.

“We are thrilled to be working with Becky G and her team,” Mina Lefevre, head of development & programming for Facebook Watch said in a statement. “Becky G is a phenomenal multi-hyphenate talent and her strong social activism and honest conversations will resonate strongly with her fans.”

Added Becky G: “Staying connected to mi gente and our cultures is incredibly important to me. My new talk show on Facebook Watch will take this engagement to a whole new level - where we’ll discuss the issues that really matter to us and our communities, have great guests and of course, invite everyone to the conversation.”

Face to Face with Becky G is the latest Facebook Watch original talk show series targeting diverse audiences that includes Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith, Steve on Watch with Steve Harvey, Red Table Talk: The Estefans with Gloria Estefan, and Peace of Mind with Taraji, with Taraji P. Henson. 

Also: Black Viewers Join Streaming Exodus 

Actress Taraji P. Henson’s talk show, Peace of Mind with Taraji, will return for a second season on Facebook Watch.

Production of 10 new episodes co-hosted by Henson’s friend Tracie Jade has begun in Los Angeles. They will be available to watch later this year.

The show had its debut in December 2020 and focuses on mental health issues through interviews with celebrities including Gabrielle Union, Mary J. Blige and Jay Pharoah in the first season.

“Peace of Mind with Taraji is a shining example of how great content can build community and create conversation on Facebook Watch,” said Mina Lefevre, head of development and programming for Facebook Watch. 

“We had a tremendous response to our first season as Taraji and Tracie struck a chord with fans and critics alike. They are the perfect duo to discuss and destigmatize mental health issues, offering important and accessible conversations with compelling guests week after week. We’re excited to show you what’s in store this upcoming season with Taraji, Tracie and our partners at 495 Productions,” Lefevre said.

“We’ve long been mental health advocates for the Black community and founded BLHF to educate and provide resources to those who are struggling with talking about their challenges,” said Henson and Jade. 

“In season two of Peace of Mind, we will continue to open the door for impactful and relevant conversations,” they said. “Partnering with Facebook allows us to engage more broadly with our community, sharing our own personal battles with mental health as well, in hopes that they see themselves in us. The more we talk about it, the more comfortable others will feel to talk about it. We will talk, we will laugh, we will cry…., we gon’ heal, together!”

Other talk shows on Facebook Watch include Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willow Smith and mother Adrienne Banfield Norris; Steve on Watch with Steve Harvey; and Red Table Talk: the Estafans with Gloria Estafan and her daughter Emily Estafan and nice Lili Estafan.

Peace of Mind with Taraji is produced by 495 Productions with Taraji P. Henson, Tracie Jade Jenkins, SallyAnn Salsano and Jennifer Ryan serving as executive producers. Ebony McClain serves as co-executive producer.

Facebook Watch, the video component launched by the world’s largest social media company back in 2018, is now averaging 1.25 billion viewers a month.

The revelation was made in a blog post written by Paresh Rajwat, head of video producers for Facebook. The numbers include users who watch just one minute of one show, so they don’t say a lot about engagement. 

But it’s relevant as Facebook’s somewhat overlooked video platform competes in the area of short form video with YouTube, which averages more than 2 billion viewers a month. 

Rajwat said Facebook Watch viewing surged at the beginning of the pandemic and has stayed strong since. 

“During a time when people can’t come together physically, more people are turning to Watch to stay connected to creators, artists, sports, entertainment and what’s happening in the world,” he wrote. 

Early on, Facebook Watch experimented with scripted originals, notably drama Sorry for Your Loss, which starred Elizabeth Olsen and was promoted for Emmy consideration before being cancelled in January. 

Over time, the platform has become much driven by reality-lifestyle programming, including its biggest domestic hit, Red Table Talk, starring Jada Pinkett Smith. 

And as described by Rajwat in his blog post, it has also become much more global and short-form driven. 

“With growing demand to connect around music on Facebook, we introduced music videos in Watch to everyone in the U.S., India and Thailand,” Rajwat said. “The music destination in Watch lets people explore music videos by genre, artist or mood, and features themed playlists. Last month, Katy Perry debuted her new music video, “Smile,” the title track of her just released fifth album, exclusively on Facebook to millions of fans.”

In France, he added, broadcaster M6 has seen in a 2.5x increase in one-minute video views in non months, while adding more than 6 million new followers across its network of Facebook pages. These include pages for France’s Got Talent, Top Shelf and Les Marseillais. 

“In Germany, ProSiebenSat.1 has more than doubled its one-minute video views in 11 months, while organically acquiring 2.5 million new follows across its show Pages such as The Voice of Germany and Galileo, rallying new audiences,” Rajwat added. 

Broadcast network ABC and streaming service Netflix were the big winners in the television category during Saturday’s NAACP Image Awards presentation.

ABC won seven Image Awards, which honors the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature, and film. Netflix finished second with six awards, while OWN and Facebook Watch also won multiple Image Awards.

ABC’s comedy series black-ish won six Image Awards, including a best comedy series statuette. OWN’s Greenleaf (pictured) was the top choice in the drama series category. 

BET aired live the NAACP Image Awards for the first time. The event was also simulcast on such networks as CMT, VH1, MTV, Comedy Central and Logo. 

The 51st NAACP Image Awards winners in the television category are as follows:

Outstanding Comedy Series

"black-ish" (ABC)

Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series

Tracee Ellis Ross -- "black-ish" (ABC)

Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Anderson -- "black-ish" (ABC)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Marsai Martin -- "black-ish" (ABC)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Deon Cole -- "black-ish" (ABC)

Outstanding Drama Series

"Greenleaf" (OWN)

Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series

Angela Bassett -- "9-1-1" (FOX)

Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series

Omari Hardwick -- "Power" (Starz)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Harold Perrineau -- "Claws" (TNT)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Lynn Whitfield -- "Greenleaf" (OWN)

Outstanding Television Movie, Limited-Series or Dramatic Special

"When They See Us" (Netflix)

Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Limited-Series or Dramatic Special

Jharrel Jerome -- "When They See Us" (Netflix)

Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Limited-Series or Dramatic Special

Niecy Nash -- "When They See Us" (Netflix)

Outstanding News/Information (Series or Special)

"Unsung" (TV One)

Outstanding Talk Series

"Red Table Talk" (Facebook Watch)

Outstanding Reality Program/Reality Competition Series/Game Show

"Rhythm + Flow" (Netflix)

Outstanding Variety (Series or Special)

"Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé" (Netflix)

Outstanding Children's Program

"Family Reunion" (Netflix)

Outstanding Performance by a Youth (Series, Special, Television Movie or Limited-Series)

Marsai Martin -- "black-ish" (ABC)

Outstanding Host in a Talk or News/Information (Series or Special) -- Individual or Ensemble

Jada Pinkett Smith -- "Red Table Talk" (Facebook Watch)

Outstanding Host in a Reality/Reality Competition, Game Show or Variety (Series or Special) -- Individual or Ensemble

Steve Harvey -- "Celebrity Family Feud" (ABC)

Outstanding Guest Performance in a Comedy or Drama Series

Kelly Rowland -- "American Soul" (BET Networks)

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting the week of Feb. 3 to Feb. 9 on cable networks and streaming services (for some videos, viewer discretion is advised):

Feb. 18 -- We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest (documentary) -- HBO

Feb. 19 -- Year of the Rabbit (comedy) -- IFC

Feb. 20 -- Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones (drama) -- Facebook Watch

Feb. 21 -- Gentefied (drama) -- Netflix

Feb. 21 -- Hunters (drama) -- Prime Video

Feb. 21 -- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (returning series) -- Disney+

Feb. 23 -- Better Call Saul (drama) -- AMC

Feb. 23 -- Ballmastrz: 9009 (animation) -- Adult Swim

Feb. 23 -- The Walking Dead (drama) -- AMC

Feb. 23 -- When Calls The Heart (drama) -- Hallmark

Facebook is pivoting strategy for its Facebook Watch video platform, cutting back on scripted original shows, while focusing more on talk shows and licensed clips from TV networks and sports leagues, subscription news site The Information reports.

Watch will also reportedly pull back from licensing live sports event broadcast rights.

Notably, Facebook recently cancelled two of its most high-profile original shows, drama Sorry for Your Loss starring Elizabeth Olson, and Limetown with Jessica Biel.

For more stories like this, visit our sister publication Next TV.

The site reported that Facebook will invest $1.4 billion in Watch in 2020, up from its initial investment of $1 billion in 2017.

Speaking to Next TV sister publication Multichannel News in October 2018, Matthew Henick, head of content strategy & planning for Facebook, said, “Unscripted content definitely works well on the platform, but we are seeing really strong signals with viewers connecting with each other around scripted content, whether it’s a drama like Sorry For Your Loss or stand up comedy clips from Dry Bar Comedy.”

Last summer, Facebook reported that it has 720 million monthly viewers for Watch, but it already had started to cut back on the number of Major League Baseball games it was licensing, as well as the amount of news programming it produced. 

Facebook is pivoting strategy for its Facebook Watch video platform, cutting back on scripted original shows, while focusing more on talk shows and licensed clips from TV networks and sports leagues, subscription news site The Information reports. 

Watch will also reportedly pull back from licensing live sports event broadcast rights. 

Notably, Facebook recently cancelled two of its most high-profile original shows, drama Sorry for Your Loss starring Elizabeth Olson, and Limetown with Jessica Biel. 
The site reported that Facebook will invest $1.4 billion in Watch in 2020, up from its initial investment of $1 billion in 2017. 

Speaking to Next TV sister publication Multichannel News in October 2018, Matthew Henick, head of content strategy & planning for Facebook, said, “Unscripted content definitely works well on the platform, but we are seeing really strong signals with viewers connecting with each other around scripted content, whether it’s a drama like Sorry For Your Loss or stand up comedy clips from Dry Bar Comedy.”

Last summer, Facebook reported that it has 720 million monthly viewers for Watch, but it already had started to cut back on the number of Major League Baseball games it was licensing, as well as the amount of news programming it produced. 

Facebook Watch said it made a new deal with Jada Pinkett Smith and Westbrook Studios that will keep the daytime series Red Table Talk on the platform for three years and extend the franchise with a new series featuring musician Gloria Estefan and her family.

Red Table Talk features three generations of women from one family discussion timely social and personal issues with celebrity guests and experts. 

“We’ve been fortunate enough to be in business with such wonderful partners and are thrilled to expand the Red Table Talk franchise with Jada Pinkett Smith, the Estefans and Westbrook Studios,” said Mina Lefevre, head of development & programming for Facebook Watch. “Red Table Talk is a shining example of how content, community and conversation come together on Facebook Watch. We’re proud to keep this conversation going around topics our fans care about.”

Red Table Talk is produced by Westbrook Studios with Jada Pinkett Smith, Ellen Rakieten, Miguel Melendez and Jack Mori serving as executive producers.  

Red Table Talk with the Pinkett Smith family features Jada Pinkett Smith her daughter Willow Smith and month Adrienne Banfield Norris.

“I’m incredibly proud of Red Table Talk, and thrilled to build upon this franchise with my family and with Gloria, Emily and Lili,” said Pinkett Smith. “Red Table Talk has created a space to have open, honest and healing conversations around social and topical issues, and what’s most powerful for me is hearing people’s stories and engaging with our fans in such a tangible way on the Facebook Watch platform.  I’m excited to see the Estefans put their spin on the franchise and take it to new places.” 

Red Table Talk: The Estefans will feature Gloria Estefan, her daughter Emily Estefan, a rising musician, and her niece Lili Estefan, a daytime Emmy Award winner.

“I’m incredibly excited to carry the Red Table Talk torch with my family in Miami,” said Estefan. “Jada and I have spoken about this a lot and feel my daughter, niece and I can tackle issues important to us and our fans with a new and fresh voice. Jada has done this incredibly and continues to do with her family in their candid, intimate, and groundbreaking conversations at the iconic Red Table.”

Viacom Digital Studios International has made a deal with Facebook to produce short-form content for Facebook Watch that will be seen in the Americas, Asia, France, Germany, Spain and the U.K.

The content in the American and Asia is being created as part of Facebook Watch’s latest programming that pairs publishers with local public figures. In the U.K., videos will be created by VDSI in partnership with MTV UK. 

“We are committed to reaching every audience, everywhere,” said Brendan Yam, senior VP of Viacom Digital Studios International. “By partnering with Facebook, we are harnessing the power of our globally recognized brands and IP and leveraging local talent and production capabilities to drive engagement with digital-first audiences around the globe.”

Here are some of the shows VDSI is making for Facebook Watch.

In the U.K., shows include:

⦁ More Love and More Lies: the winning couple who lied their way to the finish line in series one of True Love or True Lies? reflect on their path to victory and take a look at what’s to come in series two.

⦁ Geordie More and Geordie OGs: In these two series, cast members will be joined by special guests, plus friends and family, as they review the most recent episode of both series.

⦁ JTOU: What Was I Inking? (working title): This series will follow couples who have appeared on Just Tattoo of Us to find out what happened when they showed their controversial inking to parents, co-workers/friends and loved ones.

In Brazil shows include:

⦁ Useless Life-Hacks: The series will mock life hacks that bring solutions to problems we never knew existed in the first place.

⦁ Na Quebrada: A game show inspired format that approaches the “Brazilian ghetto universe,” hosted by comedian Thiago Ventura.

In Asia shows include:

⦁ 5 in 5: MTV lines up some of the most interesting, popular celebs out there and gets them to do things they have always wanted to (or never wanted to!). Through this snappy, studio-based format, fans get to see a side to their faves that they never knew they needed to!

⦁ The Ride: The Ride gives Asia’s A-list performers a direct link to fans to tell their story like no one’s ever heard before.

⦁ Positive Inking: This series features young people who have experienced meaningful things in their lives – overcoming obstacles, breaking down barriers, navigating tragedy or simply very memorable experiences — that have culminated in their desire to get inked to commemorate it.

⦁ Generation Change: An inspirational micro-doc series that crafts powerful stories around young, impassioned changemakers in Southeast Asia. 

Content distributors this week will get into the Halloween spirit early with the debut of several horror-themed shows.

Scary content targeted to kids are on tap to premiere during the week of Oct. 7 to Oct. 13, including the Oct. 11 debut of Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Hulu’s Little Monsters (pictured). Also on Oct. 12, Syfy debuts a more sinister rendering of the 1970’s Saturday morning children show The Banana Splits.

Also dropping this week are several music-themed shows, including Netflix’s Oct. 9 competition series Rhythm + Flow and AMC’s Hip Hop: The Songs That Shook America (Oct. 13)

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting this week on cable networks and streaming services (for some videos, viewer discretion is advised):

Oct. 7 -- Primal (animation) -- Adult Swim

Oct. 10 -- Torn Apart: Separated at the Boarder (documentary) -- HBO

Oct. 11 -- The Birch (horror) -- Facebook Watch

Oct. 11-- Fractured (movie) -- Netflix

Oct. 11 -- El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (movie) -- Netflix

Oct. 12 -- The College Admissions Scandal (movie) -- Lifetime

Oct. 13 -- Inside The Actors Studio -- (Ovation)

A number of veteran shows will debut with new seasons this week as the calendar turns to October.

On Oct. 6, AMC’s horror/drama series The Walking Dead will premiere its 10th season, while USA Network’s thriller Mr. Robot (pictured) will debut its fourth and final season.

Debuting Oct. 4 is the third season of Prime Video legal drama Goliath and the fifth season of Netflix drama Peaky Blinders.

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting this week on cable networks and streaming services:

Oct. 1 -- Sorry For Your Loss (drama) -- Facebook Watch

Oct. 2 -- 24/7 College Football (sports/reality) -- HBO

Oct.. 2 -- All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite (sports) -- TNT

Oct. 2 -- Living Undocumented (reality) -- Netflix

Oct. 4 -- Big Mouth (returning series) -- Netflix

Oct. 4 -- In The Tall Grass (horror) -- Netflix

Oct. 4 -- Into The Dark: Uncanny Annie (horror) -- Hulu

Oct. 4 -- Raising Dion (drama) -- Netflix

Oct. 6 -- Star Wars Resistance (returning series) -- Disney Channel

USA Network’s premiere of Suits spinoff drama series Pearson and Netflix's reality series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee lead the list of new and returning shows debuting this week.

Pearson, which premieres July 17, stars Gina Torres as lawyer Jessica Pearson, who moves to Chicago to work for that city’s mayor after being disbarred in New York, according to USA Network.

The series’s debut follows the premiere of the ninth and final season of Suits.

Also premiering this week is the new season of Netflix’s reality series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, starring Jerry Seinfeld and featuring appearances by Eddie Murphy, Seth Rogen, Ricky Gervais and Jamie Foxx.

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting this week on cable networks and streaming services:

July 15 -- Girl Cruise (reality series) -- VH1

July 16 -- Behind Closed Doors (documentary) -- HBO

July 16 -- Human Discoveries (animation/comedy) -- Facebook Watch

July 16 -- Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein (comedy series) -- Netflix

July 19 -- All of Nothing: Carolina Panthers (reality sports) -- Prime Video

July 19 -- Killjoys (returning series) -- Syfy

July 19 -- Queer Eye (returning series) -- Netflix

July 21 -- Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted (reality series) -- Nat Geo

You’d think social media giant Facebook would be ramping up the spend on advertising for its one big Facebook Watch video service hit at the moment, Ball in the Family, a reality show following basketball’s famously bombastic Ball family around the world.

The show’s producer, Steve Ezell, who’s traveled with the Bunim/Murray Productions-produced show since it debuted 15 months ago, said that family patriarch Lavar Ball’s youngest son, LaMelo, would return to the United States from self-imposed exile in a Lithuanian pro league — big news on digital outlets ESPN.com and Bleacher Report.

Would Facebook tout the breaking news to promote the third season of Ball in the Family?

Not really. Nothing, in fact, was planned for advertising.

“Because of the nature of the [Ball] family,” Ezell said, “everybody is advertising for us.”

For those wondering about the potential of the world’s largest communications platform to take over TV with Facebook Watch, the still relatively new free-to-consumer, advertising-supported video service is starting out unconventionally.

In an age in which vast quantities of news gets distributed on a social network reaching 2.27 billion active monthly users across the globe, it would seem logical that Facebook might find ways to exploit user data to target viewers to shows. A nifty algorithm, for example, could surface those headlines in the feeds of the basketball fans it allegedly knows far too much about, reminding them about its little Ball family reality show.

“We have access to a lot more data than we traditionally would working for a TV network,” conceded Ezell, who doesn’t even work directly for Facebook.

That kind of intimate promotional capability is the Holy Grail for most TV marketing executives toiling away at linear cable and broadcast networks. But if your interest was piqued by last week’s Ball news, you’d have to search for the show on Facebook, or check to see if it was still on the “Watch List” of shows you’ve previously viewed on the platform.

Just like Ball in the Family, more than a year after launch, Facebook Watch is just kind of quietly sitting there, hardly a failure but by no means a hit. “Facebook appears to be making a big play here, though its internal promotions belie the strategy,” Michael Greeson, president of research firm The Diffusion Group, said.

The promotional strategy is dictated by the “open” design of Facebook’s platform, said Matthew Henick, the social media firm’s head of content strategy and planning. The handful of premium shows on Facebook Watch — which also include the Jada Pinkett Smith-led gab show Red Table Talk, the Brillstein Entertainment Partners-backed melodrama Sorry for Your Loss and Queen America, featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones as a beauty pageant coach — get no more of a promotional boost than do the hundreds of far-cheaper-to-produce digital shorts from internet video companies like Refinery29 and Mashable.

Similar to YouTube, the best and most popular Watch shows will ostensibly end up winning the day, virally distributed via platform search and by the sharing of friends.

Maybe.

Sorry for Your Loss stars Elizabeth Olsen, the sister of twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and an acclaimed indie film actress, as a young widow unearthing all sorts of strange secrets about her deceased husband. The show has been exceptionally well-reviewed, with its first season generating a very impressive 95% “fresh” score on TV critics aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

But according to Facebook’s metrics, which are readily apparent on a Watch show’s page, just like they are on YouTube, only around 130,000 users have clicked “start” on the most recent episode. (Facebook debuted the first four episodes of the show on Sept. 18. There are 10 first-season episodes of Sorry for Your Loss.)

“They haven’t really figured out how to promote anything they do,” said Alan Wolk, founder of TV[R]EV, concurring with fellow analyst Greeson.

14M Regular U.S. Viewers

As Watch reached its one-year anniversary in August, The Diffusion Group released an anemic user survey assessment, which said the service would spend between $1 billion to $2 billion on video content this year. The researcher said Watch was being used regularly by only around 8% of U.S. Facebook denizens.

Worse, only around half of Facebook’s U.S. user base had even heard that there was a free video offering on the social media network.

“People don’t know what it is,” Wolk said. “It’s not even clear to people that Watch is a separate thing [within Facebook].”

Conversely, 8% of 214 million translates to a sizable audience of around 14 million regular Facebook Watch viewers, which in the ultra-competitive realm of over-the-top distribution, ain’t a bad first-year performance by any measure.

According to eMarketer, spending on Facebook dominates internet video advertising. Last month, the research company noted that spending on online video ads in the U.S. will grow 30% in 2018 to $27.82 billion, making up a fourth of all digital ad spending. The report projects that Facebook will end up controlling 24.5% of that digital ad spend, or around $6.81 billion.

Perhaps with all of this in mind, Facebook said in August it would charge forward with international expansion of Watch. In the United Kingdom, for example, Facebook is already funding shows like Barcroft Media’s Most Interesting Homes and ZigZag Productions’s Troy the Magician.

Despite what he still considers a “slow build” of Watch users here in the U.S., TDG’s Greeson conceded “it would be remiss to underestimate Facebook’s longterm potential as a large-scale video provider.”

Like Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google — the other four companies making up the “FAANG” acronym for Silicon Valley’s most highly market-capped companies — Facebook approaches video with goals that are more diffuse and less direct to the bottom line, relative to most TV companies, Greeson said.

“This is why technology companies are so dangerous to legacy media companies,” he said. “Pure-play video, music or gaming operators must survive on revenue and profits from those services, whereas Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon have such deep pockets and vast business empires that they can spin up a service in short order and lose money on it for years if it serves a higher purpose, like keeping Facebook users in the branded ecosystem for longer.”

In his report, the TDG analyst specifically noted the Watch platform success of Localish, a digital-first brand launched by ABC Owned TV Stations. In July, Localish premiered More in Common on Facebook Watch. Through early November, the uplifting reality show had gathered 172,400 Facebook followers, which are tantamount to “subscribers” on YouTube. Not bad for locally produced content by a station group.

Housed in the “news” section of Facebook Watch, More in Common is comprised of heartwarming stories, culled from the news teams of local ABC stations, about Americans who have “come together despite their differences” to accomplish notable goals in their respective communities.

It’s in line with other “pro-social” unscripted Watch shows, including Returning the Favor, another local-do-gooder focused Watch series starring Mike Rowe, former host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs.

Is this kind of unscripted show Watch’s “brand lens”? Cue the maybe emoji.

“Unscripted content definitely works well on the platform, but we are seeing really strong signals with viewers connecting with each other around scripted content, whether it’s a drama like Sorry for Your Loss or stand up comedy clips from Dry Bar Comedy,” Henick said.

Ricky Van Veen, Facebook’s head of global creative strategy, has recently said that the platform looks for “hot starts” with known talents, such as the Ball family or Pinkett Smith.

Led by Digital Natives

While FAANG has rattled the TV business largely by poaching from the Burbank-native ranks of traditional film and TV companies, Watch has put mostly digital natives in charge of video.

Henick, for example, has a master’s degree in digital media studies from Stanford University and cut his teeth at internet content company BuzzFeed.

Van Veen was the co-founder of seminal digital content platform College Humor and also spent time at Barry Diller’s Internet conglomerate, IAC. Fidji Simo, Facebook’s vice president of video, used to work at eBay. Angel Gonzalez, sports and original programming manager for Facebook, has a background in banking and construction.

Notably, though, Mina Lefevre, head of development and programming for Facebook Watch, worked at MTV as executive vice president and head of programming and development.

“We have people with very traditional TV backgrounds on our originals team both in development and production,” Henick said, noting Lefevre specifically. “We didn’t recruit them solely for their traditional experience, but for their creative tastes and willingness to experiment in this new video environment. ‘Internet content’ and ‘traditional TV’ are merging very quickly.”

Ball in the Family producer Ezell said he mostly interacts with Lefevre and Gonzalez. He said the creative process of working with Facebook is not too different from dealings he’d have with a cable network. Network notes, he said, are often given, but tend to be on the “lighter side.”

It’s unclear as to how precise metrics of Watch shows are, despite what appears to be transparency. As Wolk noted, unlike, say, Nielsen metrics, which measure viewing minute by minute, Facebook is only showing the world how many starts there are to an episode. So, on the surface, a metric like the 27.4 million views for the premiere of Ball in the Family may appear impressive, but it doesn’t tell you how many of those views came from start/stop viewing from the same user, or how many unique users watched the show.

Still, Facebook’s viewer metrics do tell a story of the platform perhaps serving its larger goal, which is to simply increase overall engagement. For example, beyond the 4 million “views” for the pilot episode of Sorry for Your Loss, Facebook tells us that nearly 8,600 people have reacted to the show, 1,000 users have commented on it and nearly 2,500 watchers have shared it with their friends.

For large tech companies like Facebook, Greeson said, “media services are commonly a means to a larger end, not ends in themselves.”

After building a deceptively large U.S. audience, Facebook Watch is going global.

The social media giant with the $500 billion market valuation said in a blog post that it will make its Watch platform available worldwide effective Thursday.

“Every month, more than 50 million people in the U.S. come to watch videos for at least a minute in Watch—and total time spent watching videos in Watch has increased by 14X since the start of 2018,” wrote Fidjo Simo, head of video for Facebook, in a blog post.

Last week, research company The Diffusion Group noted that nearly 74% of Facebook’s U.S. audience doesn’t consume the original video platform, and that 50% of the social media’s users haven’t even heard of it.

Only 6% of Facebook’s U.S. users consume video daily on Watch, TDG said, and only 8% access Watch on a weekly basis.

Of course, when you’re dealing with the kind of audience scale Facebook enjoys, the glass could also be interpreted as 6%-8% full for the Watch, which programs a combination of entertainment, news and sports, ranging from Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith, to reality show Ball in the Family, to Major League Baseball games.

Given Facebook’s U.S. user base is pegged at around 214 million, 6% of that audience would be close to 13 million daily users—a seriously good first-year audience performance, any way you slice it.

Simo said Facebook would continue to fine-tune Watch, while taking its existing programming slate international and including subtitles where needed.

He said Facebook will expand its Ad Breaks monetization program, which currently includes mid-roll and pre-roll ad formats, as well as image ads directly below the video. This allows creators to earn a share of ad revenue generated by their videos.

“Taking Watch global also means new opportunities for creators and publishers around the world,” Simo added. “We’re expanding our Ad Breaks program so more partners can make money from their videos, and we’re offering new insights, tools and best practices for Pages in Creator Studio.”

The PGA Tour said it has made a deal with Facebook, which will stream exclusive coverage of live Saturday and Sunday competition during eight of its golf events.

The 60-plus hours of coverage will be presented free on Facebook Watch in the United States.

The move is the latest example of streaming companies acquiring rights to live sports — often the TV industry’s most popular programming.

The Facebook Watch-exclusive coverage window will begin at approximately 8:30 a.m. ET on both Saturday and Sunday of each event and will conclude when Golf Channel’s lead-in coverage begins.

Related | broadcastingcable.com: Discovery Announces $2B International PGA Tour Deal

The PGA Tour will produce this unique coverage for Facebook’s social video platform, with interactive elements designed to engage fans. For example, the coverage will incorporate fan questions and comments, the PGA Tour said.

“No matter if it's a weekend foursome or water-cooler conversation about a top moment on Tour, golf brings people together,” said Devi Mahadevia, Facebook’s North America live sports programming lead. “So we're delighted to partner with the PGA Tour to help it reach new fans and deliver interactive, live coverage on Facebook that taps into the social nature of the sport.”

Related: Hutton Joins Facebook to Seek Out Sports Deals

The Facebook Watch coverage will begin at the Travelers Championship on June 23 and June 24. The remaining events in 2018 include: Quicken Loans National; A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier; John Deere Classic; RBC Canadian Open; World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational; Wyndham Championship; and The Northern Trust.

The agreement also calls for a range of on-demand programming, including tournament previews, round recaps and extended player highlights, which will be available in the United States on Facebook Watch and globally via the PGA Tour Live show page.

In May, the PGA Tour sold Facebook the rights to stream 30-plus hours of live coverage from The Players Championship.

Mark Zuckerberg continued to get a Hill hammering Wednesday (April 11) as the Facebook CEO continued to apologize for not sufficiently monitoring the social media site for bad actors and pledged to do better.

Apology was not accepted in most cases, and self-regulation appeared not to be the leading candidate for preventing future issues with protecting user data from abuse and letting them know what didn't qualify as abuse.

The hearing was still going on, but the battle lines were clear over issues including trust, potential bias, compliance with government consent decrees, and who owns online content. And while there was praise for Facebook as a vehicle for communications and social change and Zuckerberg as a great American success story, and employer of constituents, there were far more brickbats than bouquets.

Zuckerberg said it was not enough to give people a voice; the company needed to make sure those voices were used for good. He said it would take time to make the necessary steps to protect users information that Facebook has not been protecting sufficiently, and many months to investigate other apps.

Facebook will likely have to succeed in doing that to avoid new regs on edge providers, though he has also expressed a willingness to be regulated, so long as it is the "right kind" of regulation, signaling Wednesday he thought that was inevitable, which could explain why he was getting ahead of that by talking about how they should be regulated, not whether.

Following Zuckerberg's grilling Tuesday before the Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees, it was the House Energy & Commerce Committee's turn to train the spotlight on Facebook.

House E&C Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) has said he prefers deregulating ISPs to adding new regs to the edge, but has clearly not ruled that out, nor had many of the other members of the committee if Wednesday's hearing was any gauge.

"Facebook has grown," but it may not have matured," Walden told Zuckerberg. "It may have moved too fast and broken too many things," he added hearkening to Facebook's original slogan.

Walden said Facebooks breach of trust was troubling, and that breach "must have consequences." But he still entertained the possibility that the consequences could be the company cleaning up its own act.

Related: Senators Introduce Opt-In Edge Privacy Bill

Ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) hammered Facebook for vacuuming up data without protecting it. He cited Zuckerberg's answer to the Senators that he was not opposed to regulation. Pallone said there needed to be such comprehensive regulation. He said Facebook had allowed itself to be used as a tool to "hack our Democracy."

He said the company was either blind to the red flags or ignored them. Either way, he suggested, Congress needs act.

He also called for further hearings with other edge providers, ISPs, app developers and others Both Walden and Pallone pointed to the good that Facebook has done, jobs, including in Walden's district; helping motivate pro-social movements, and become integral in the daily lives of the nation.

Asked if Facebook was a media company, Zuckerberg said no, he thought of it as a tech company. He said Facebook has a responsibility over its content, which is what he thinks is at the heart of the question.

On the point of whether Facebook had matured, Zuckerberg said it had "grown and evolved" from the dorm-room startup.

While Facebook does not sell user data, it is probably its most valuable asset, so he asked why Facebook had not told folks just what it does with that data.

Zuckerberg said users have control and that is clear, but that it has not done a good job of explaining how advertising on the site works.

Related: Sen. Nelson Says Facebook Failed Us

Walden asked if Congress needs to intercede, but did not have time tpo get an answer.

Pallone said he does not have much faith in corporate America or their "GOP allies." He told the Facebook CEO that there needs to be legislation that provides more transparency, the lens through which he sees the issue.

Zuckerberg said Facebook limits the amount of data it collects and uses, that it is changing user privacy default settings so developers can't get as much access to data, but was not ready to commit changing those user default settings to limit as much as possible the collection of user data, saying it deserved more than the one-word answer Pallone was asking for.

Zuckerberg said people were free to port their data to other aps as part of the developer platform to allow people to share their information in different ways.

Pallone said people were not empowered enough to make those porting decisions in a "positive way."

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) asked a question submitted to him on Facebook: Why is Facebook censoring Diamond and Silk and other conservative web sites. Zuckerberg said that had been an enforcement error made by his team that is being reserved. That appeared to be a new piece of news. He also said he wanted to give people the most free expression as possible.

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said the government had duped people in the 60's into sharing their personal information, and he was a victim of that. He said Facebook was doing something similar, the wholesale invasion and manipulation of their basic right to privacy, likening him to former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover.

Zuckerberg said the difference is that people can choose not to have Facebook collect info. He said he knows of no surveillance effort that allows that.

Rush shot back that Facebook was no longer a dorm-room startup, and that it now had enormous social responsibility that Zuckerberg had failed to consider.

Zuckerberg said people are pro-actively choosing to use the service, which customer-facing controls over how that data is shared.

Rush brought up the report that Facebook had allowed real estate ads to exclude African Americans from target audiences.

Zuckerberg said that option for advertisers to remove ethnic groups had been removed.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) sounded a note of caution about regulation suggesting it could cement the position of a Facebook while hurting startups. Zuckerberg conceded that one of the things regulation can do is favor big companies, like his, while discouraging start-ups without big pockets.

Upton also raised the issue of a Facebook bias against conservative speakers, using the example of a Michigan state reps announcement of his platform for an upcoming political race, which included pro-life and opposition to "sanctuary cities." It was rejected by Facebook with the explanation that it did not accept shocking or disrespectful or violent speech. Upton read

the statement and pointed out he couldn't understand how it violated the policy. Zuckerberg said there could be a mistakethere, too.

He also told Senators Tuesday that he understood their concern about the left-leaning tendency of Silicon Valley, but that Facebook should not be vetting speech for political content.

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) asked about Russian influence over elections and asked if Facebook had a way to inform the government if it discovered such activity.

Zuckerberg said Facebook was deploying new AI tools to ferret out fake accounts, but did not address whether there was also a process for informing the government of any activity it discovers. He called it an arms race and could not promise it could prevent all interference.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked Zuckerberg who owned the "virtual you" online. He said everyone owns their own content and that protecting privacy is a foundational corporate value.

She said Facebook will have to provide opt-in choice to guarantee the right of privacy.

Related: Zuckerberg Says He Didn't Do Enough to Prevent Fake News

Blackburn asked whether Facebook adjusts its algorithms to censor speech. He said they didn't think of what they were doing as censoring speech.

The issue is not whether Facebook adjusts its algorithms, but whether the way it does that extends beyond terrorism and racism to a definition of hate speech that incorporates political views with which some at the company disagrees. That is Republican's key concern.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) cited reports that Facebook's algorithm for its news feed was biased against conservative voices and asked if that was a corporate directive. Zuckerberg said no. Scalise asked whether he was aware of that bias, but there was not enough time for and answer. Scalise asked for one in writing, and that Zuckerberg investigate whether anyone at thecompany built a bias into the algorithm.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said there needed to be robust penalties for violations of privacy, particularly Facebook violations of the FTC 2011 consent decree.

An obviously unhappy Rep. Michael Doyle (D-Pa.) pointed to the 20-year FTC consent decree and said that Zuckerberg appeared illing to "flout internal policies and government oversight when it suited him. He said the only way to close that trust gap is through legislation that will require giving a government agency rulemaking authority--something the FTC doesn't have--to oversee and protect user data.

Zuckerberg suggested that while Cambridge Analytica's access to user data was a breach of people's trust, it was not a violation of the consent decree.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) cited a long history of apologies from Facebook, which is why she said self-regulation just won't work. She cited Zuckerberg apologies from 2003, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2017, and 2018. On the subject of protections Zuckerberg said Facebook was supplying users at the point of decision, Schakwosky said: "Who is going to protect us from Facebook."

The WWE will take its brand of professional wrestling entertainment to Facebook with a live, in-ring weekly series to debut in January, the company announced Wednesday.

The 12-episode series, Mixed Match Challenge, will feature WWE Superstars from both the RAW and SmackDown Live rosters competing in a single-elimination mixed tag-team tournament, said the WWE.

Each 20-minute episode will be optimized for mobile consumption and social interaction, including the ability for fans to engage with WWE Superstars during the show. Fans will also have the opportunity to select match-ups on Facebook, said the WWE.

The storylines for Mixed Match Challenge will continue between episodes across WWE’s Facebook Pages with short-form videos and social content, with the series promoted through a new Facebook Watch show Page dedicated to Mixed Match Challenge.

“As we continue to expand our strategic partnership with Facebook, this new series, Mixed Match Challenge, jointly reflects our innovative approach to content distribution and fan engagement,” said Michelle Wilson, WWE Chief Revenue & Marketing Officer in a statement. “This show will deliver the action and excitement our passionate fan base is accustomed to while offering new production elements and social experiences that only Facebook can provide.”

Facebook Watch has renewed its docu-reality series Ball In The Family for a second season, said company officials.

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The series, which chronicles the lives of Los Angeles Lakers rookie point guard Lonzo Ball and his family – including his outspoken father LaVar – will return for a 13-episode second season later this year, said the company.

The season one finale of the series, produced by Bunim/Murray Productions, will premiere Oct. 29, according to Facebook.