Original scripted content is the flavour of the moment right now, gang. Whereas recently brands and platforms felt like they needed to publish their own deep, rich longform written content for whatever reason, now it’s all about everyone trying to be Netflix.
Facebook has been flirting with the idea of doing their own original scripted shows for their video platform for a little while, and Mark Zuckerberg explicitly said that they would start making and commissioning their own shows. Now they’ve announced the first two.
The first is Returning the Favour, a show hosted by Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame, in which he travels around America profiling people who are “putting their communities first” like, for example, “motorcycle mechanic who runs an operation helping vets with PTSD.” Sounds curiously like a show in line with Facebook’s brand message.
The second show is more aligned with Facebook’s professed desire to pump out some more hot sports content. The unnamed doco follows the Ball family, whose sons, Lonzo, Liangelo and LaMelo are currently slaying in the basketball world.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook’s series – which will presumably include these two – will take the form of 30 minute episodes, including ads.
It’s certainly interesting – the question will be whether Facebook’s offerings will be able to drown out the sheer noise of all the rest of the video on Facebook, which includes compelling content like teenagers getting nailed in the nuts by a skateboard.
Source: Deadline.
Photo: Getty Images.
