Facebook may have spent tens of millions of dollars on deals with publishers and celebs to create more live content, but this seems to be changing soon.
In mid-2016, Facebook set up deals with various publishers, influencers, and celebrities to try to get them to produce more content for Live. For those deals, Facebook spent a whopping $50 million. But is the company willing to continue this way? According to a recent Recode article from Kurt Wagner, no one is expecting Facebook to renew the deals,
[quote]numerous publishers tell Recode that Facebook is de-emphasizing live video when it talks to them. And none of the publishers [they’ve] spoken with expect Facebook to renew[/quote]
Facebook is instead emphasising “longer, premium video content.” Wagner says that “the hope is to get more high-quality video onto the platform and into your News Feed.” And by longer premium content we are assuming they mean VOD (series, movies, documentaries) and other TV-style content, like shows etc.
This doesn’t mean that Facebook is shelving Live as a source of premium video content. The company still runs ad campaigns to increase the adoption of Live. They just don’t target publishers and celebrities as Facebook did last year. However, the shift from premium live video, to premium video isn’t just happening with Facebook. Many publishers asked by Recode, said that they wouldn’t be interested in continuing at their current pace anyway.
As Wagner reported,
[quote]they will continue to make live videos for Facebook and other platforms, like Twitter and YouTube, but they’ll scale back their efforts.[/quote]
In other (but similar) news, Facebook is planning to share revenue with publishers from the mid-roll video ads it is testing.
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