According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Facebook is “willing to spend as much as $1 billion” on original video content. The company is looking to make some serious and vast additions to its video tab Watch.
Facebook is taking its video content to a new level. With original programming taking the hot seat in the recent years, it’s not surprising to see the social media giant taking this step. In June, WSJ reported that Facebook was willing to pay as much as $3 million per episode for shows, as well as was interested in original sitcoms.
Even though Facebook is willing to pay a lot of money for shows, in the end it wants to pay nothing for original shows, but instead offer the creators a 45 percent share of ad revenue. That’s a chunk of ad revenue that the company is willing to give away, which could possibly pay more for creators than just getting payment per shows or episode. This is because of the number of users on Facebook.
Facebook may be looking to invest as much as $1 billion, but that’s not a lot compared to what its competitors are willing to commit. Netflix committed to $6 billion in 2017 and Amazon spent about $4.5 billion. Recently, even Apple said they will spend $1 billion on original content next year.
It seems that Facebook’s $1 billion investment may just be a starter. It may raise the number depending on how successful its initial shows are, according to WSJ report.
