Netflix gets a lot of attention for disrupting the television business. It’s hard to beat on-demand streaming of top shows for $8 per month. But Twitter and other social networks may soon find a way: How does on-demand streaming of top shows for $0 per month sound?

Broadcast television networks have long given away their programming to anyone willing to adjust their TV rabbit ears and endure commercials, but social networks like Twitter and Facebook could offer an even more compelling version of that arrangement: big audiences plus an incredible ability to target the ads.

The social nets know far more about each individual viewer than any cable network or internet streaming platform, to say nothing of terrestrial broadcasters still relying on old-fashioned radio waves. Combine this with their ability to insert custom ads for each viewer, and they look like ideal platforms for the distribution of ad-supported TV shows. Not the highbrow programming you’d see on a premium network like HBO or Netflix, mind you, but mass market programming from the major networks: The Vampire Diaries, NCIS, Dancing with the Stars – shows like that.

It looks like Facebook and Twitter are beginning to appreciate their unique position. Just this week, Bloomberg reported that Twitter wants to add more entertainment-focused video programming and has held talks with Viacom and NBCUniversal about hosting video clips on its site and splitting revenue from ads shown alongside. Facebook, meanwhile, is reportedly muscling in on the video-ad business, offering companies who traditionally advertise on television the chance to buy 15-second spots targeted at people in one of four buckets: women over 30, women under 30, men over 30, and men under 30.

These moves appear tentative and experimental. It’s early days yet for social television purveyors, to say nothing of would-be advertisers. But the timing sure seems right. Just as television is fracturing into a staggering number of shows, channels, and distribution systems, targeting ever-more niche audiences, along come the massive social media platforms offering sophisticated technology that can cherry pick one custom-targeted audience from any number of TV programs. That sounds like an attractive proposition for revenue-hungry media moguls still trying to figure out how they’re going to support their business online – and wary of ceding too much power to the likes of Netflix and Apple.

For the social networks, meanwhile, video offers a way to tap into the rich vein of television advertising money, which for the most part is still invested in old-line broadcast and cable distribution channels. It also adds valuable information to their ad targeting databases. Facebook, for one, can already find out what e-commerce sites you visit, what you put in your grocery cart, and what locations you visit while carrying your mobile phone. Just imagine what it could do with the knowledge that you watch The Bachelor.