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Publishers see short-form video views on Facebook cut in half

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Publishers are finding short-form video viewing figures on Facebook have plummeted as more content creators battle for space in the news feed.

Over six months ago a well-performing video from The Sun would fetch 250,000 views; now it’s lucky to get over 100,000. In 2016, The Telegraph was getting over 10 million Facebook views a week for 70 videos; now it’s under 5 million.

“It’s questionable whether that’s saturation, algorithm changes or changes in content,” said The Telegraph’s head of social, James Carson. “But when algorithm changes do happen we don’t really see any noticeable short-term impact.”

“There’s an explosion of content and finite time,” said Nic Newman, author of the Reuters Journalism, Media and Technology Trends and Predictions 2017 report. “As soon as everyone gets involved, the rate goes down and Facebook can’t sustain it, so it has to downgrade other things. It’s a point of emphasis rather than a massive switch off. Many publishers will be trading off with what they are doing in Facebook Live.”

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