If you ask publishers that have a series on Facebook Watch, things have not gone so well on the social network’s first year as a premium programmer. But, according to Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg on the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Facebook video viewership, including on Watch, has been grown three-fold in the United States over the last quarter alone. And unlike other calls, Zuckerberg was quite candid about the plans for Watch and Facebook’s continued interest in investing into video products and programming.
During the call, Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg also shed light on the limitations Facebook has experienced thusfar with both audience response and monetizing video. He was also forthright about the company’s lesser position to its largest competitor — YouTube.