Facebook has signed deals with 140 media companies and celebrities for its live-streaming service, Facebook Live. Through this, the social networking company will try to keep its 1.65 billion monthly users engaged.
Facebook signed deals with media firms such as the New York Times, CNN, Vox Media, Mashable and the Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to a document cited by the publication, the California-based company has agreed to pay video creators more than $50 million in payments.
In addition, the company has also partnered with celebrities such as wellness guru Deepak Chopra, comedian Kevin Hart, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and American football quarterback Russell Wilson, Reuters reported.
The Mark Zuckerberg-led company had in March said that it would start paying some creators to use its live-streaming product. The document reviewed by the WSJ points out the list of content providers and their financial dealings with Facebook.
"We have an early beta program for a relatively small partners that includes a broad range of consent types from various regions around the world. We wanted to invite a broad set of partners so we could get feedback from a variety of different organisations about what works and what doesn't," Justin Osofsky, vice president of global operations and media partnerships at Facebook, was quoted as saying by the news agency.
BuzzFeed is the highest paid publisher. As part of its deal with Facebook, it would reportedly get $3.05 million for broadcasting live between March 2016 to March 2017. Similarly, the New York Times will receive $3.03 million for a one-year deal.
