Facebook launches its TV application to compete with YouTube

Update 01/03/2017: The Facebook Video application is available on Apple TV . Go to the App Store, where she is on the front page, to install it. Update 02/02/2017: Facebook took advantage of an intervention by its vice president of partnerships at the  Code Media 2017 conference to formalize the coming arrival of a TV application. It will be launched “soon” on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and connected Samsung televisions, then on other platforms, hopefully on Android TV, in a second.

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At the presentation last night of the financial results, Mark Zuckerberg announced thatFacebook is considering in essence to compete with YouTube, Netflix and others .Zuckerberg actually wants people to think about Facebook when they want to watch videos. He joined Spotify , which has been broadcasting television programs for a year, and produces exclusive programs . At this stage, he only talked about episodic content, designed to loyalize Internet users. But according to the Wall Street Journal , which had revealed information the day before, Facebook would already be in discussions with producers and distributors to acquire television series-type programs, as well as long programs produced specifically for the service.

Facebook would arrive on Apple TV and Android TV

According to several sources “close to the file”, he would also launch an application for televisions used to broadcast these so-called “premium” long-format programs. This application dedicated to multimedia players ( Android TV boxes  , Apple TV …) would not allow to consult the photos and the other shares of the news wire, unlike that proposed on Roku, it would serve exclusively to these new videos. On the other hand, Facebook has already started to improve the visibility of videos of more than 90 seconds in the news feed. These contents will not be reserved for TVs.

From mid-roll to resume strong growth

After becoming ”  mobile-first” , Facebook would now aim to become “video-first” . Some of its employees even evoke a future platform of “mobile TV” . This is for the company to return to strong growth. Facebook has effectively warned in November that it is reaching a plateau, due to lack of room for more advertising in the newswire. In this context, video advertising is a good vehicle for growth. However, the social network continues to forgo pre-roll , these advertisements broadcast before a video, to favor the mid-roll . Spectators would see 15 seconds of publicity after at least 20 seconds of video, and up to two 30-second breaks for the longest programs.