Facebook Watch Hasn't Caught On With Viewers Yet

When it comes to original content, Facebook can afford to play the long game.

According to a recent survey of 1,632 adult Facebook users by The Diffusion Group (TDG), 5o% of them have never heard of the company’s heavily promoted Facebook Watch service that reportedly attracts an audience of about 50 million every month.

Another 24% of respondents have heard of the free service but never used it. Only 6% of respondents check out Facebook Watch at least once a day. Another 8% watch weekly while 7% viewed the content once or twice a month.

Even so, both legacy media companies and independent producers have found success with Facebook Watch. For example, Walt Disney's ABC TV Station Group, launched Localish, a digital-first media brand in July which has attracted 5 million views and 50,000 subscribers. Some major league baseball games have been broadcast on Facebook Watch as well though many fans, including me, weren't impressed with the experience.

Facebook plans to spend $1 billion on original content for Facebook Watch in 2018 and will shell out billions more in the coming years, so it can afford to experiment. The largest social network also recently announced plans to expand the service internationally.

"Despite the slow build of Watch users, it would be remiss to underestimate Facebook's long-term potential as a large-scale video provider," notes Michael Greeson, President of TDG, in a press release. "As we first noted in 2016, prominent social platforms like Facebook are looking for ways to exploit their massive scale to sell new video services to their users, much as Amazon has done with Prime.”

As Variety noted, Facebook Watch's other hits include Red Table Talk starring Jada Pinkett Smith and her family, which has attracted 2.9 million followers since its May 7 launch. The show’s official Facebook discussion group has more than 360,000 members who submit questions to the show’s hosts. The reality show Ball in the Family, which follows the adventures of basketball impresario LaVar Ball and his sons including Lonzo, who plays for the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, has 1.6 million followers after Season 3 premiered June 10. 

Facebook, Apple , Amazon and YouTube may join the fray for sports broadcast rights for the NFL, Major League Baseball and college football and basketball in the coming years, driving up the costs for legacy broadcasters. They have the deep pockets to afford the billions needed to add the programming and don’t have the same immediate profit pressures as legacy media companies. 

Facebook isn’t the only service finding it hard to attract users’ attention. Analysts have found that most Amazon Prime users aren’t watching the site’s video content, such as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which is awesome, preferring to focus on the service’s free two-day shipping. Many consumers probably have no clue about the proliferation of skinny bundles including Sling TV or about Disney's plans to take on Netflix.

Luckily, money can cure for a lack of awareness and Facebook has plenty of that medicine.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified digital media brand Localish as Localfish.