Facebook will produce own TV shows, executives reveal

The social media giant is reportedly in talks with Hollywood studios and could be showing the first episodes of its TV shows within months.

It may be budgeting up to $3m per episode, a relatively high amount in the industry, according to the Wall Street Journal.

And two likely series have already been named: a relationship drama Strangers and game show Last State Standing will likely be among the first to be shown on the platform.

Nick Grudin, vice president for partnerships, confirmed reports that partners had been working with Facebook and aimed to broadcast shows by the end of the summer.

“Our goal is to make Facebook a place where people can come together around video,” he said.

Sports, gaming and reality television will be among the themes for the programming, which is likely to be broadcast episode-by-episode.

Although Facebook’s production partners have not been confirmed, Mr Grudin said participants would “experiment with the kinds of shows you can build a community around”.

Facebook has made a public shift toward video in recent years, adding a devoted video tab to its app and pushing its livestream capacity.

In February 2016, Mark Zuckerberg told an audience in Berlin that “live video is one of the things I’m most excited about”.

But the move to production marks a significant departure for the social network, which has previously focused on being a go-to platform for content produced by third parties.

It follows a trend set by other major players, like Amazon and Netflix, which in recent years have made a decisive shift toward producing original programming. – news.sky.com