With a new reality show called “Last State Standing” said to be in the works, it’s only a matter of time before Facebook turns into a TV network of its own.
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Facebook TV?: What makes a TV network a TV network seems to keep changing every day.
Last week, Apple, which isn’ t a TV network at all, premiered its first original show, “Planet of the Apps, ” on its Apple Music subscription service. Twitter has original programming with the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, and it will soon debut a 24-hours news “channel” that will be a partnership with Bloomberg. There’s so much TV going on all over the place that Netflix and Hulu, which helped start the most-recent upending of the TV network industry, almost seem as old as the Big Three networks themselves.
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Biz Break: Apple rides high, and newcomers emerge, in the Fortune 500 Now, Facebook wants to get in on the TV action. And this week, we’ ve been getting more insight into just what Facebook has planned.
The latest show for Facebook’s programming lineup is reportedly an upcoming reality contest show called “Last State Standing.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Last State Standing” will feature one contestant from each of the 50 U. S. states competing for a grand prize of $500,000. Few other details of the show are known, other than it has begun production, and a premiere date hasn’ t been set.
The reports about “Last State Standing” came one day after it became known that Facebook was close to picking up the show “Loosely Exactly Nicole, ” featuring actress and comedian Nicole Byer, for a second season. The show was canceled by MTV four months ago due to low ratings.
But, for Facebook, maybe the old traditional ratings don’ t matter? Facebook wants to build out its video operations, and right now, it’s all about getting some content, any content, to set up a beachhead in the online-TV market. Oh, and putting up something that might appeal to your billions of users and keep them around to click on some ads that bring more revenue into Facebook’s coffers can’ t be a bad thing either, in Facebook’s eyes.
Middle Innings:
Keep Your Check: That might be something the United States is about to say to China. The drive to develop artificial intelligence technology has become one of the newest competitive fronts between the U. S. and China. And as such, American governmental officials are said to be considering tightening up on letting Chinese companies invest in certain tech industries, such as artificial intelligence. The main reason is concern about computer and network security.
Bottom of the Lineup:
Another One Gone From Uber: In case you missed it, David Bonderman, of buyout firm TPG, has given up his seat on Uber’s board of directors. Why?
Well, it was due to a comment that Bonderman made at an Uber staff meeting Tuesday. Bonderman and Uber board member Arianna Huffington had the following exchange:
Huffington: There’s a lot of data that shows when there’s one woman on the board it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board.
Bonderman: Actually, what it shows is that it’s much more likely to be more talking.
Huffington: Ohhh. Come on, David.
Uh, yeah. Sounds like Bonderman’s sense of cutting-edge humor ended in about 1957.
But, with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick taking a leave of absence, and the company seeming to face a different scandal about sexual harassment and other bad behavior every day, there was no way Bonderman could stay with a company that might have finally understood that perception is 90 percent of reality. And the public has perceived Uber pretty negatively for quite a while.
Quote of the Day: “What we have done is a significant step forward in thinking about how to transfer energy to a moving object.” — Stanford electrical engineering professor Shanhui Fan, who is working on research aimed at developing wireless charging of electric cars .
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