This afternoon, Amazon is premiering its new original comedy on its Facebook page, rather than its very own video platform. The pilot of the British comedy series Catastrophe will be live on the Amazon Facebook page from 7 p.m. ET until Wednesday. The official premiere will be on Amazon Prime on June 19. MediaPost reports that:
The move comes as Facebook takes a growing share of online video from YouTube, long the dominant online video platform. According to Facebook its 1.3 billion users were viewing over four billion videos per day as of April, up from three billion per day just three months before. Wall Street analysts estimate the total revenues from Facebook’s autoplay video ads could reach $700 million this year, compared to an estimated $1.55 billion for YouTube, still the dominant video ad platform.
Amazon will be tweeting and available on Facebook to live-tweet the pilot with fans. The show has been picked up in full already for a second season. This season is just six half-hour episodes. Short and sweet, perfect for Facebook.
