Facebook is now huge, with 500 million users worldwide. That’s quite an audience just waiting to be tapped into by those willing to do so. Step forward Channel Five, which is making its Demand Five catch-up service available on the social networking site.
Britain On Demand
British broadcasters have taken to on demand video streaming very well. The excellent BBC iPlayer is leading the way, but 4oD, the ITV Player, the Sky Player, and Demand Five aren’t too shabby either.
Then there are the likes of SeeSaw and the MSN Video Player streaming older content from these networks and other copyright owners. Channel Four and Channel Five content is also available to watch on YouTube.
All of this content is, sadly, subject to international copyright restrictions and is therefore only available to view in the U.K. But in the same way people outside of the U.S. can watch Hulu, there are workarounds.
Demand Five On Facebook
is thought to be bringing its streaming service, Demand Five, to Facebook. If this deal goes through then Five will become the first broadcaster to make its content available on the social networking site in such a way.
While there has been a decent level of sharing and integration between broadcasters and Facebook in the past, Demand Five is scheduled to be embedded within the site, giving U.K.-based Facebook users access to the whole library of content without ever leaving the social network.
Facebook has around 26 million users in the U.K., which is more than a third of the total population. So this is a big deal for both sides. And both sides stand to gain from the deal.
For its part, Facebook will have more people staying on the site for longer as they watch full episodes of recent shows. While Channel Five will likely increase its on-demand audience, all of which will be seeing ads managed by the broadcaster.
Conclusions
This is clearly a win-win situation, and it’s good to see a British broadcaster having the guts to forge such a deal. If the Channel Five deal turns out to be a good one for both sides, hopefully other broadcasters will follow suit.
[Via NewMediaAge]
