Just over a year since it was unveiled in the US, the Facebook Watch TV and video service is now available to users of the social network on a worldwide basis.
The global launch will see the service available in the UK, US, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand as well as the US.
Running on mobile, on desktop and laptop, and in TV apps, Watch comprises a personalised video service designed to enable users to discover new shows and is organised around what friends and communities are watching. Facebook worked on the principle that people’s comments and reactions to a video are as much a part of the experience as the video itself.
Content creators can create sets of live or recorded episodes that follow a theme or storyline and programming is grouped into sections such as Most Talked About, which highlights shows that spark conversation, or What Friends Are Watching, which helps people connect with friends about shows they too are following. Watch also contains shows funded by Facebook which the company says are examples of community-oriented and episodic video series.
Reports suggest that Facebook will allow all content creators to feature advertising breaks, dependent of reaching pre-assigned and agreed traffic levels. These are that videos are longer than three minutes in length and attract more than 30,000 viewers who stayed for more than one minute when watching the content over the past two months and that have more than 10,000 followers. Revenue will split 55/45 in favour of the creator.
Facebook believes that Watch has been a success after being featured on the social network's navigation bar and marketed heavily within the Facebook app. It adds that every month more than 50 million people in the US coming to watch videos for at least a minute, and that total time spent watching video on the platform has increased by 14 times since the start of 2018.
Yet in August 2018, a survey from TDG of 1,632 adult Facebook users regarding their awareness and use of the Watch tab, found that the free ad-supported video on-demand service faced significantly challenges regarding feature awareness and use. The survey showed tha half of adult Facebook users had never heard of the free, while 24% had heard of it but never used it. In all, 21% of users were said to view shows on Watch at least monthly, 14% at least weekly, and 6% at least once a day.
Source: https://www.rapidtvnews.com/2018082953330/facebook-watch-goes-global.html#axzz5PbDQ0c2S