Facebook’s First Slate Of Long-Form Shows Could Arrive In A Month

Facebook has made no secret of its goal to pick up a number of long-form shows to deliver to its massive user base. Now, a few more details have emerged about the sort of shows the social giant plans to distribute. A Business Insider report has cited sources who claim Facebook could announce its first slate of long-form content, consisting of about two dozen series in total, in mid-June.

Business Insider describes the nature of Facebook’s upcoming programming slate as twofold. Some longer series will aim to resemble top-of-the-line TV shows, while shorter ones with runtimes ranging from five to ten minutes will likely feature lower budgets and a daily distribution schedule.

The originals will all be available through Facebook’s video tab. The general plan seems to be to use these high-profile, eye-catching shows to draw more traffic to the hub on which they will be distributed. For that reason, Facebook execs have used adjectives like “anchor” and “seed” to describe the company’s long form content. “The goal is going to be creating some anchor content initially that helps people learn that going to the video tab — that that’s a great destination where they can explore and come to Facebook with the intent to watch the videos that they want,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a recent earnings call

Long-form content on Facebook will come with several money-making opportunities for partners. Mid-roll ads will allow published videos to accrue revenue, and Facebook is reportedly paying some creative outlets to insert those ads into their offerings.

The one part of this story that is still pretty foggy, however, is the nature of the shows themselves. Former CollegeHumor exec Ricky Van Veen has been leading Facebook’s latest programming initiative, but exact details about the projects his team has picked up are scant. Business Insider does believe that one of the series in Facebook’s long-form library will be a reality show produced by Conde Nast that will send people on VR dates, but that rumor has not been publicly confirmed just yet. Hopefully we’ll only have to wait a little longer to see how Facebook plans to draw consumers to its video tab.