Article: Facebook Watch may become more like YouTube

Article from Business Intelligence by Kevin Tran. I think they need to compare with Dtube too! Happy reading everyone.

Facebook aims to give more content creators the opportunity to make shows for the company’s TV-like section, Watch, in a bid to more directly rival YouTube, CNBC reports. Facebook plans to implement a system in which creators can upload their shows to Watch for free and earn ad revenue, similar to how creators monetize on YouTube.

Facebook's initial focus was on procuring Watch shows from professional publishers and media companies by partially funding some Watch shows and buying others outright. The company enables current Watch partners to earn 55% of mid-roll ad revenue on their shows.

Making Watch available to smaller creators is beneficial to Facebook’s broader video push:

Facebook can lure creators discouraged by YouTube’s stricter monetization criteria. YouTube recently changed its monetization policies, requiring creators to accumulate 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of accrued watch time over a 12-month period. Previously, channels needed 10,000 total views to be eligible. Additionally, a number of YouTube creators have spoken out about their videos being unfairly demonetized. Facebook, where video creators en masse likely don't feel wronged in the same way, may represent an attractive monetization alternative to YouTube.
The company would no longer have to shell out money to procure Watch content.For its first batch of Watch shows, Facebook spent $10,000 to $40,000 per episode for short-form series, and $250,000 to $1 million per episode for TV-length original series. With the new ad revenue sharing system, Facebook can avoid spending more on expensive shows that could end up flopping.
And it could help Facebook address the issue of declining time spent per user.Facebook is incentivizing the creation of longer-form content by upping the limit for ad-eligible videos from 90 seconds to 3 minutes, and increasing the placement of the first mid-roll ad from 20 seconds to 90. These moves could spur the development of longer-form content and help reinvigorate time spent per user, which decreased by 2 minutes globally in Q4 2017.
But opening up Watch to more creators will make it increasingly difficult to vet content. Opening up Watch to smaller creators increases the chances of objectionable videos being posted to the platform. This means Facebook could encounter the same type of advertiser boycotts that YouTube faced in 2017. However, creating a system where only top, vetted Watch videos are eligible for ads — similar to Google Preferred — could help Facebook preemptively ensure brand safety. Facebook is reportedly already discussing creating this type of tiered system, which would help it more directly challenge YouTube."