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Facebook Watch goes international

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A year after it launched in the US, Facebook is taking its Watch video platform international. The company announced in a blog post this morning that the platform will be available globally, meaning partners can now reach an audience of billions of people across countries and languages. That’s a massive audience addition, and it gives Facebook access that’s on par with YouTube and Netflix. While those new audience numbers don’t necessarily mean more partners are going to jump on board Watch, it at least gives them a better reason to do so.

It also means advertisers can reach those billions of users to profit off of ad breaks. Congrats to all the partners. Ad break partners can publish ads in English and other local languages. Watch is available on iOS and Android in the Facebook app. It’s also available through Apple TV, Samsung Smart TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Xbox One, and Oculus TV.

Facebook’s blog post says more than 50 million people in the US watch at least a minute’s worth of video per month and that the total time for watching videos has increased 14 times since the beginning of 2018. Still, one-minute views as a reference point isn’t extremely reassuring regarding the platform’s possible success.

Since its launch, Facebook has designed multiple new formats for publishers to try, including live game shows and series that feature interactive portions like quizzes and polls. The company seems to want to create a truly social TV network where creators and viewers can interact with one another in real time. Now, that audience participation will be worldwide.



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