Facebook is encouraging its publishing partners to move away from live-streaming video in favor of producing more long-form video, according to Recode, which first reported the news.
The timing of the push for longer video content is significant, as Facebook is also poised to introduce new mid-roll video ad products, which may be more suitable for long-form videos.
Publishers who previously struck deals with Facebook to create live streaming video say they don’t expect these agreements to be renewed. That suggests Facebook has decided its investment of more than $50 million in live video last year hasn’t born fruit, in terms of audiences or advertising revenue.
Publishers also viewed the pay outs for live video as too meager.
While Facebook Live is still a going concern and major focus for the company, the emphasis is shifting to getting more ordinary users to use it to communicate with their family and friends.
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In place of live streaming video, Facebook is now angling for publishers to produce more premium original video for distribution to users’ News Feeds, and may end up paying them to make it. The social network is also reportedly in negotiations to license original shows similar to TV programming.
As noted in a previous post, Facebook is reportedly preparing a new mid-roll video ad placement, raising questions about the quality of user experiences, especially since most of the video watched on the platform is still short-form – a format not particularly well-suited to interruptions by ads.
However ,long-form video may be a better fit for mid-roll ads. It gives the viewer more time to engage with the content before asking them to pause for a commercial break, as well as promising more content afterwards.
The mid-roll video ads will be no more than 20 seconds long and will only appear in videos with a minimum length of 90 seconds.