Short-form content from CBS’ late-night shows “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Late Show with James Corden” will now appear on Facebook Watch, according to multiple reports.
It’s the latest effort by Facebook to make Watch a thing.
Clips of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, now the most popular late-night talk show, will begin appearing on Facebook Watch this evening. Fans of the late-night “Carpool Karaoke”-driven antics of James Corden will have to wait til Monday January 8th, when the show returns from hiatus, according to a Variety report.
While Facebook’s numbers aren’t lights-out compared with the YouTube juggernaut, most of its shows are pulling in viewers in the millions (respectable for late-night shows that look at an audience of 3 million as a win).
Terms of the deal between CBS and Facebook weren’t disclosed, but Facebook is clearly hoping that Watch can be a tool to unseat the dominant streaming video player in the market — YouTube.
By June of last year, YouTube Red (Alphabet’s subscription service) had racked up 250 million views.
Colbert also posts basically the entirety of its show to YouTube, and CBS has its own premium service in CBS All-Access. So Watch isn’t the only place that viewers can see Colbert’s full-throated criticism of the current administration — it’s just the latest.
