Facebook Watch Orders Reality Series ‘Big Chicken Shaq’

Facebook Watch has greenlit an interactive reality series following Shaquille O’Neal as he realizes his lifelong dream of opening his own restaurant. The logline: Iconic athlete, actor and television analyst Shaquille O’Neal is fulfilling a lifelong dream of launching his own restaurant, and he’s enlisting the Facebook community for advice along the way. Shaq has partnered with Asylum Entertainment, a TCG company, to produce “Big Chicken Shaq,” an eight-episode Facebook Watch series premiering this fall. Through real-time engagement on Facebook Watch, fans will be able to help shape Shaq’s new Las Vegas restaurant – Big Chicken – launching later this year. The series will also feature a variety of content in-between episodes, and O’Neal will leverage Facebook Live to surprise fans with cookalongs, taste tests and other activities. 

Facebook Watch, additionally, has renewed “SKAM Austin” for season two, and “Returning the Favor” for season three. “SKAM Austin” tells realistic and authentic stories from the lives of American teenagers. SKAM offers an unfiltered look at what teens are dealing with today head on, with characters that don’t hold back and relationships that unfold real-time across social media. SKAM is about standing up to shame. It is about owning and being yourself, even when you aren’t mainstream and “accepted.”

“Returning the Favor” is a weekly celebration of an outstanding human. Hosted by Mike Rowe, the show is the ultimate dose of inspiration coupled with humor and surprise. In each episode, Mike Rowe will select one individual nominated by the “Returning The Favor” Facebook community, tell their story and chronicle the set-up of their surprise reward (with all the funny and dramatic ups and downs) building up to an exciting reveal of the reward.