Stephen Lam | Reuters
Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg waves as he arrives on stage during the annual Facebook F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, U.S., April 18, 2017.
Facebook is planning two tiers of video entertainment: scripted shows with episodes lasting 20 to 30 minutes, which it will own; and shorter scripted and unscripted shows with episodes lasting about 5 to 10 minutes, which Facebook will not own, according to the sources.
All of the sources asked to remain anonymous because the deals are confidential.
Facebook’s move to acquire and license original content is the latest in its push to attract more advertising dollars, putting the company in head-to-head competition with Alphabet Inc’s YouTube Red, Snapchat’s Discover feature, and traditional television networks.
It is an attempt to deliver on Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks to investors earlier this month that the company was looking for so-called anchor content that would draw people to the video tab on Facebook’s app.
The world’s biggest social media company is set to pay up to $250,000 for the longer, scripted shows which will be owned by Facebook, taking a page from a strategy employed successfully by Netflix and Amazon.com, which both now own some of the content they sell to subscribers.
For the second tier of shorter shows, Facebook will pay $10,000 to $35,000 for each show and give creators 55 percent of revenue from ads, the sources said. Ads will run during both the long-form and short-form shows.
A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment.
