Musical.ly might have professionally made original shows to offer along with user-produced content sometime in the future. According to Bloomberg, the music video app is currently talking to Viacom and Comcast’s NBCUniversal about creating original programming for its users. Musical.ly is reportedly interested in interactive shows that encourage the community to participate instead of heavily produced ones. The publication’s sources didn’t get more specific than that, only noting that the Chinese company’s purpose is to widen its appeal by offering videos that focus on, say, comedy or sports.
While Musical.ly hasn’t confirmed Bloomberg’s report yet, it’s not that hard to believe that it’s cooking up originals for its users. It’s already working with Seventeen to create a fashion and beauty series for the platform and with the 2017 Billboard Latin Music Awards in an effort to develop more Hispanic-focused concepts.
It’s also not unusual for social media platforms to develop original programming at this point in time. Twitter is working towards broadcasting live original content all day, every day. Facebook even brought in a former MTV executive to lead its efforts to create both scripted and unscripted originals, mainly for teenage audiences.
Before Musical.ly launches original shows, though, it will introduce Snapchat-like filters in the coming days. The feature will apparently be called Face.ly and will superimpose virtual masks on your face so you can create an animated avatar. It will eventually become a standalone app, but until then, it will live inside the company’s main application.
Source: Bloomberg
