Fill in the blank -TV; Facebook becomes the Television Hopeful du Jour
As the cable and satellite TV providers vacate their positions at the center of consumers living rooms, the trillion dollar question is who will replace them.
Across the tech industry, everyone seems to be coming to a consensus answer. They’re all shouting “Me!”
Facebook is the latest company to grab headlines by turning an eye to the tumult in the television business. Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to host premium TV, with users tuning in weekly for their shows.
But despite the exodus from cable TV, there’s no empty throne waiting for the first company to climb in. It’s a puzzle to be solved, and one that nobody has yet to get quite right.
Here’s why Facebook is only the latest in a long line of also-rans:
Harder than it Looks
To become a player in pay-TV, Facebook will have to start by licensing content. But content owners would be wary to commit to what will likely be an uncontrolled platform.
But whether studios and networks line up to give Facebook their content or not, Zuckerberg is going to have to pull out his check book and get comfortable at the negotiating table where he could spend months or more.
To build a competitive offering from existing shows and movies is a licensing nightmare, and creating original content is even more costly.
Point-to-point streaming is also very expensive on a large scale; prohibitively so if Facebook expects its audience of billions to tune in.
The Friend of My Enemy
Chances are greater that Facebook will partner with (or perhaps acquire) another company in order to get the ball rolling, rather than starting from scratch.
This is a perilous approach too, as getting friendly with one media company can close doors at the rest in this hyper-competitive industry.
Strike a deal with Disney, and don’t expect to get a lot of love from NBC Universal, for example.
This would result in a service that is not agnostic, making it one more web-based channel for consumers to consider, when there are already far too many to manage.
Who’s This For?
Anyone just hoping to translate a large user base into easy money via offering television is in for a rude awakening.
Without some fresh ideas, Facebook TV really only makes sense to one party: Facebook.
For content providers, it only means one more bucket for content that’s already spread across too many, likely involving some sort of revenue split with the social network.
Likewise, for consumers, so far there doesn’t seem to be anything to make Facebook more than yet another content library. One more $10 monthly subscription that they probably don’t need.
Local broadcasters would also be left out, a problem that has proved to be a stumbling block for many companies who have similarly set their sights on TV.
Thinking Bigger
Any company can create a TV service, that’s not special. That’s precisely why FreeCast exists: there are so many online content sources, with more being added all the time.
But to create a web television service that consumers will actually be able to replace traditional cable and satellite based TV with is a much more complicated affair, requiring careful consideration of multiple interested parties: consumers, content creators, TV distributors, advertisers, local broadcast stations, multi-billion dollar media empires, and more.
Our solution was designed from the ground up to balance the needs of all of these groups, catering to each one in order to bring them all together into a marketplace where everyone benefits.
For the massive companies like Facebook eyeing the newly-disrupted TV industry as an easy place to hop in and make a quick buck, the truth that they’re poised to learn the hard way is that consumers, content creators, and advertisers are all expecting a lot more.
