Facebook could be stepping into the TV market.
The social media giant is developing an app for television set top boxes, including Apple TV, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
The app would allow video streaming to home televisions as Facebook moves onto the next step of it’s video content initiative following its adoption of live broadcasting and higher quality video streaming last year.
The company is also in discussions with media companies to create long form TV quality programming, much like Netflix and Amazon before it. This would give Facebook a whole new source of potential revenue and increase it’s share in the ad market, where it is currently second to Google.
Video has become a much larger part of Facebook’s content in recent years and the platform has gained a reputation for it’s short video clips. An expansion into original content upwards of 10 minutes in length could include more structured entertainment shows as opposed to more viral content.
Facebook’s main source of revenue comes from ad’s but the company stated in 2016 that the news feed was close to running out of room to insert more ads.
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The company is due to announce it’s fourth quarter earnings and has warned of a significant fall in growth, but becoming a part of the TV advertising market, worth $70 billion a year, could help the company grow in future.
Several tech companies have similar plans to break into the TV ad market, last week Snap Inc. stated their intentions to expand it’s advertising business over the next few years. Google’s YouTube platform is also interested in this strategy.
Facebook is looking to incorporate more video across the board, and just last week unveiled “Facebook Stories” in it’s attempt to copy the popular Instagram and Snapchat feature.
