Ranking The Potential Of Each Streaming Service

12. Facebook Watch

Estimated Subscribers – N/A

You’d be forgiven for not knowing that Facebook even had a streaming service. Facebook Watch launched in 2017, making Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking behemoth the fourth of the ‘big five’ tech giants, after Amazon, Apple and Google (in the form of YouTube Red/Premium), to launch a platform.

Microsoft have yet to follow suit, a decision that is probably wise given their games console rival Sony’s decision to step away from Crackle and Google’s cessation of original scripted content purchases for YouTube (of which little stood out bar the now Netflix-backed Cobra Kai).

Facebook itself, though still strong from a commercial standpoint, is gradually losing its follower base in key demographics (with fewer and fewer under-30s opting to actively maintain profiles) and suffering from reputational damage through its involvement in the facilitation of ‘fake news’ (particularly relating to recent elections and the Covid-19 pandemic) and scandals such as the Cambridge Analytica affair.

All of this combines to paint a bleak outlook for Facebook Watch, which has little in the way of brand recognition even amongst the social network’s most prolific users, despite it being free. The fact that they aired just two original commissions in 2020 after more than fifty in 2018 would indicate that they’ve given up on it already.