Facebook To Add Media Content, Celebrity News For Live Srervice: WSJ
Facebook has signed deals worth more than $50 million with media companies and celebrities to create videos for its live-streaming service, the Wall Street Journal reported. Facebook has signed nearly 140 deals, including with CNN, the New York Times, Vox Media, Tastemade, Mashable and the Huffington Post, the Journal reported on Tuesday, citing a document.
The social network’s partners vary widely. It includes established media outfits like CNN and the New York Times ; digital publishers like Vox Media, Tastemade, Mashable and the Huffington Post; and celebrities including Kevin Hart, Gordon Ramsay, Deepak Chopra and NFL quarterback Russell Wilson.
"We wanted to invite a broad set of partners so we could get feedback from a variety of different organizations about what works and what doesn’t," Justin Osofsky, Facebook’s vice president of global operations and media partnerships, said in a statement.
Live videos increases the engagement of the social network’s 1.65 billion monthly users. The company still is determining how it will monetize the video service through ads.
The document shows that Facebook's deal with online publisher BuzzFeed has the highest value at $3.05 million, the Journal said, followed by the New York Times at $3.03 million and CNN at $2.5 million.
In March, Facebook said it would start paying some creators to use its live-streaming product as part of an early beta test, and some publishers had acknowledged having such arrangements in place.