• by Ross Fadner , July 3, 2012

Facebook is pitching cable TV execs on the idea of paying the social networking giant for the added exposure it’s popular “like” button generates for their video content on its platform.

According to the New York Post, which broke the story, the companies would share the ad revenue gleaned from the increased exposure a piece of video content generates from “liking” the content on Facebook. The social network feels this would boost TV ratings and the company should therefore get a cut of TV ad revenues.

“If you have 2.6 million likes and Facebook drives that to 4.6 million, then they would share a piece of the additional likes,” one TV source told The Post.

Details of how the initiative would be put into place are still unclear. For example, would media companies put entire shows on Facebook? The site currently hosts mostly trailers and clips. Meanwhile, its video revenues are close to zero.

Facebook’s recently announced pact with Time Warner’s TBS is an example of one of its first video distribution partnerships, although nothing has been announced regarding the revenue-sharing arrangement.

A Facebook spokeswoman tells The Post that that deal “leverages our premium ad products and their reach against Facebook users, and as such the creative execution can and probably will take form as video.”