By Joe Flint and Deepa Seetharaman
Facebook Inc. to Hollywood: Let's do lunch.
The social-networking giant is talking to Hollywood studios and
agencies about producing TV-quality shows with an eye toward
launching original programming by late summer, people familiar with
the matter said.
In meetings with major talent agencies including Creative
Artists Agency, United Talent Agency, William Morris Endeavor and
ICM Partners, Facebook has indicated it is willing to commit to
production budgets as high as $3 million per episode, people
familiar with the situation say.
That's the price range of high-end cable-TV shows. Facebook is
also interested in more moderate-cost scripted shows in the
mid-to-high six-figure-per-episode range, these people say. The
company will be aggressive about trying to own as much of that
content as possible.
The push for TV shows is part of a two-track effort at Facebook
to up its game in video and target the tens of billions of ad
dollars spent on television.
Facebook also is seeking short-form content, primarily
unscripted, that could run for 10 minutes in the Spotlight section
for videos, the people familiar with the matter say.
The social network is guaranteeing creators of short-form fare a
minimum $5,000 to $20,000 share of ad revenue per episode, a person
familiar with the company's strategy said. Companies working on
such content for Facebook include BuzzFeed, ATTN and Refinery 29,
according to people familiar with the situation.
Facebook declined to comment on specifics of its content plans.
In a statement, Vice President of Media Partnerships Nick Grudin
said, "We're supporting a small group of partners and creators as
they experiment with the kinds of shows you can build a community
around -- from sports to comedy to reality to gaming. We're focused
on episodic shows and helping all our partners understand what
works across different verticals and topics."
Facebook has told people in the industry that late summer is a
bit of a moving target for launch. It hopes to target audiences
from ages 13 to 34, with a particular focus on the 17-to-30 range.
It appears to be seeking shows along the lines of the drama "Pretty
Little Liars" on Freeform, the cable channel formerly known as ABC
Family, or similar to ABC's "Scandal" and reality hit "The
Bachelor," people familiar with the matter say.
Among the shows Facebook already has lined up is "Strangers," a
relationship drama aimed at millennials that made its debut at the
Sundance Film Festival, and the game show "Last State
Standing."
Facebook is willing to take another network's castoffs or
"distressed assets," as one entertainment executive put it. The
company is nearing a deal for the family comedy "Loosely Exactly
Nicole," which Viacom's MTV canceled earlier this year after one
season. An executive familiar with the show said its budget was in
the $1 million-per-episode range.
"Loosely Exactly Nicole" is near and dear to Mina Lefevre, who
developed it while at MTV and now heads Facebook's development
effort, reporting to Ricky Van Veen, founder of the website
CollegeHumor, who joined Facebook last year.
Facebook has told people it wants to steer clear of shows about
children and young teens as well as political dramas, news and
shows with nudity and rough language.
Facebook enters a bustling TV scene where old and new players
are creating a staggering amount of original programming, making it
hard for even good shows to break through. Last year there were
more than 455 scripted shows on TV.
Compared with digital players such as Netflix Inc., Amazon.com
Inc. and Hulu, which have been in TV for years now and have
well-stocked pipelines of original programming, Facebook is late to
the game. Apple Inc. is also hunting for original TV programming
and just hired two top executives from Sony Corp.'s TV studio.
The longer-form scripted shows on Facebook are expected to run
no more than 30 minutes and will carry ads. A potential challenge
for Facebook is Hollywood's desire to own much of its content.
Typically, studios and producers effectively rent their shows to
networks through licensing deals, and are reluctant to part with
rights to shows in perpetuity.
The entertainment industry is eager to see if Facebook can
translate the data it has on tastes and habits of nearly two
billion monthly users into insights that make for more popular
television.
Facebook is expected to spread out the release of its episodes,
in the traditional fashion, rather than dropping an entire season
at one time, as Netflix and Amazon do, the people familiar with the
matter say. Facebook sees its platform as an in-house water cooler
of sorts, ideal for building a social community around shows.
In another move that will distinguish it from Netflix and
Amazon, Facebook is also telling Hollywood it will share viewership
data with them.
"Facebook is saying, 'We're going to be completely transparent,'
" one agent said. " 'You'll share in our ad dollars, our profits
will be your profits, you will get all the data.' It's a
humongously different mind-set."
--
Jack Marshall
contributed to this article.
Write to Joe Flint at joe.flint@wsj.com and Deepa Seetharaman at
Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 26, 2017 00:04 ET (04:04 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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