BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Attention, TV Networks: Facebook Is Coming For You Next

This article is more than 9 years old.

Mark Zuckerberg likes to use the first few minutes of his quarterly earnings calls to preview big themes that he sees as pivotal to Facebook's future. With a particularly strong quarter of results in hand, Zuckerberg took the opportunity to sketch out a particularly ambitious goal: stealing market share from just about every other form of digital media, particularly television.

Facebook users in the U.S. spend about 40 minutes per day with the service on average. That statistic is usually cited as evidence of Facebook's ubiquity, but Zuckerberg noted that Americans spend about nine hours a day with screen of all kinds. That's exciting, he said, because of shows there's a lot of room for growth.

At whose expense would that growth come? Google's, for one; Graph Search, Facebook's search product, now processes more than 1 billion queries per day as of June, he said. Zuckerberg also noted pointedly that people spend a "crazy" amount of time sending messages of various sorts, time they could be spending with WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram Direct, Slingshot or other Facebook products.

Mark Zuckerberg (Photo credit: Kris Krug)

But there's no doubt where most of the time would have to come from. As BTIG's Rich Greenfield notes, television is still the incumbent, claiming 5 hours a day of the average person's attention. With ears pricked, it was possible to detect numerous hints of a broader plan to go after TV's share of mind and ad dollars.

Facebook's engineers recently tweaked the algorithm governing News Feed to increase the prominence of videos, Zuckerberg said. Making organic auto-play videos as prominent as video ads is another big priority. Meanwhile, COO Sheryl Sandberg said the old view that "creative storytelling" brand ads have to air on television is dying.

TV networks, Facebook is coming for your business. Don't say they didn't warn you.