New York (AFP)

Disney +, HBO Max or Apple TV + have beautiful out the heavy artillery to invest the landscape series, Facebook, YouTube or Snapchat have not given up to offer their own original programs, especially to seduce advertisers.

Historically, these three social networks are known for their content generated by the users themselves, not for their series.

However, they have been investing for three years in free fiction production, unlike the streaming giants, all paying.

YouTube has, at one time, wanted to make "Cobra Kai" or "Liza on Demand" calling products for its Premium YouTube Pay service, but has finally gone back this year.

Free access "gives advertisers more exposure to a wider audience, (...) and attracts great Hollywood talent and YouTube creators," the platform explained in May.

For YouTube, whose reputation has sometimes been choked by dubious content from users, offer series of a quality comparable to classic television productions is also a matter of image.

- Quality rather than quantity -

As Mark Beal, who wrote a book about these young people born in the mid-1990s ("Decoding Gen Z"), says, Generation Z "does not respond to traditional advertising", but may be more sensitive to advertiser of a YouTube series.

After being a very ambitious time on fiction, YouTube has slowed down, abandoned new projects and existing programs, to focus now on a few hit series.

Quality in limited quantities, this also seems to be Facebook's strategy on scripted soap operas.

In mid-October, the social network released "Limetown" video declination of one of the first successful fiction podcasts. This is also image, but even more to promote its video platform Facebook Watch.

With its nearly 2.5 billion monthly users, Facebook also uses "Limetown" and "Sorry for Your Loss", its two star series, to play the card of interaction with users, which is the strength social networks.

"For me, it's the most interesting part, as if people were at the coffee machine after talking about what happened," said co-producer of "Limetown," Michelle Purple, during a round table at the Toronto Film Festival.

In the case of "Sorry for Your Loss", which evokes grief, the sides of the series go even further: moderators sometimes play the role of psychological support for Internet users looking for support.

"It was a natural place for that," said Mina Lefevre, head of programming at Facebook Watch, at the Toronto festival, citing the mourning exchanges.

By choosing two drama series, rather dark, Facebook Watch is aimed rather at an adult audience, representative of its users, older than those of Snapchat or TikTok.

- Triumph of the smartphone -

For Facebook, it is an additional engine of the famous "commitment" that the platform seeks, in order to increase the time spent on the network and interactions.

If Snapchat strives to achieve the same result, it does so more nervously, adapted to its audience, younger, although also using his own fictions.

Episodes of just a few minutes, shot vertically, to adapt to watching on smartphone, and at a frantic pace, with multiple visual effects. It is a new format, more adapted to the current uses, explains one at Snap, mother house of the social network.

And unlike YouTube and Facebook, Snapchat does not skimp on quantity.

The social network announced in early April, six new series of fiction, then three others in late September, in addition to those already available, such as "Kappa Crypto" or "The Dead Girls Detective Agency".

We are far from the $ 15 million unit for the new series of Apple TV +, "The Morning Show", but according to Digiday, Snap does not hesitate to shell out between $ 40,000 and $ 50,000 per episode.

"Mobile is now the dominant medium for telling stories and consuming content," said Sean Mills, head of original Snapchat content, in early April. "This transformation creates lots of new opportunities."

© 2019 AFP