NBC News Execs Rip Facebook

NBC News doesn't think very highly of Facebook, and it isn't holding back.

According to Business Insider, the news division's Group Chairman Andy Lack and its SVP of Digital, Nick Ascheim were highly critical of Facebook's relationship with the media industry at an event on Wednesday, questioning whether the social network has any real interest in the news business or dealing with the myriad problems it faces related to fake news.

Nick Ascheim

The two executives expressed a growing frustration regarding working with Facebook over the years, casting doubts over whether the tech giant will ever help media companies make money. Lack said that NBC executives have even taken to calling Facebook "Fakebook."

Ascheim said as of now, Facebook is "just a marketing vehicle. We don't put our content there because we don't think they value premium content the way some of our other partners do."

Ascheim said Wednesday that when evaluating digital distribution partners, NBC looked at three things: You need traffic, revenue or brand value.

"They were checking no boxes," he said.

NBC said that increasingly, platforms like YouTube and Apple News are checking more of those boxes. And while Lack and Ascheim were tough on Facebook, the two executives heaped praise on Snapchat for being a strong media partner. NBC's daily Snapchat series "Stay Tuned" now has 5 million subscribers since launching last July, the pair said.

Stay Tuned Hosts Seller, Schwartz

The show is shot specifically for Snapchat, and features two hosts with little previous TV experience (Savannah Sellers and Gadi Schwartz). "It's off to an unbelievable start," said Ascheim.

In February,"Stay Tuned" generated 125 million video starts, meaning that people watched at least one Snap (or roughly 10 seconds). The show reached 33 million unique viewers, Ascheim, and importantly a large number of people are watching at least three days a week. "That number has grown tremendously."

Of course, it should be noted that NBCUniversal is an investor in Snap. So the company may get some preferential treatment.

Lack said that the quick, mobile-centric formats that have clicked for "Stay Tuned" could prove to be game changers in news. "I've been chasing millennials for a better part of a quarter century. Most of them aren't millennials anymore. They are the most elusive [demographic for news organizations to reach]."

Yet the majority of NBC News' Snap audience is under 25.