Image Source: Meta
Meta recently announced that it will be shutting down its original streaming content division known as Facebook Watch. This action is a part of a larger continuation of lay-offs and budget cuts that Meta has been applying in order to remain profitable.
The termination of Facebook Watch means that shows such as Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk will be forced into finding a new home. Additionally, Mina Lefevre, who led original program development and was a former executive at MTV was also included in the cuts. The layoff is also estimated to impact 10,000 employees.
The cuts however have proven to be successful as Meta has now reported that last Wednesday it’s revenue had increased 3%, beating Wall Street predictions.
Meta is a part of the growing trend of social media conglomerates taking a step back from original content. In January Youtube sold some of its content to Netflix and Showtime, and announced that it would be significantly scaling back on its content. Snapchat also made a similar move last August, when it announced that it would be getting rid of Snap originals and reducing its workforce by 20%. Both Snapchat and Youtube made the strategic choice to focus more on user-generated content.
The original Facebook Watch content team strived to have content which “taps into the social fabric” of Facebook. Their goal was to have communities of people talking about the different shows that Facebook offers. Additionally, they also transitioned in recent years to entirely unscripted shows. Despite the low cost of unscripted television, Facebook will now be entirely focusing its content towards first of its kind VR experiences and shows in Meta Horizon Worlds. With recent moves such as bringing Peacock as an available option on Oculus, it appears as though Meta is embracing other streamers to showcase their content on Meta software and hardware. The move to create and film immersive VR streaming content specifically from Meta seems to be a new realm of entertainment that no other streamer has done before.
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ROGER IRWIN 