Facebook confirms it is paying media companies to use Live Video; sources say New York Times, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, among those getting paid
It's Not Just Celebrities — Facebook Is Paying Media Companies to Make Live Video, Too — Facebook wants big media companies like BuzzFeed …
Context & Ripple Effects
Re/code's confirmation turns rumor into policy: weeks after a source reported Facebook may pay six figures for celebrities to stream live, the company admits the same subsidy machine is aimed at institutions — The New York Times, BuzzFeed, and Huffington Post are named recipients.
That admission opened the ledger: by June, a document showed more than $50M spread across nearly 140 contracts, with BuzzFeed the single largest earner at $3.05M for one year. The story matters because it marks the moment Facebook started buying supply for Live Video rather than waiting for it.
First-order effects
- BuzzFeed, The New York Times, and Huffington Post now have a direct revenue line from Facebook for live streams, giving them cash to staff video desks their own ad businesses could not yet fund.
- Facebook converts Live Video from an empty feature into a supplied product overnight, since the named publishers can fill the format on schedule.
Second-order effects
- Publishers gain negotiating leverage they never had over News Feed distribution: once Facebook pays per post, rivals must either match rates or lose exclusive attention — the same dynamic that later produced Facebook's 2017 deals paying up to $250K per episode for shows it would own.
- The per-post structure Facebook offered creators — around $250K for 20 live posts a month over three months, per the related reporting — sets a de facto price list other platforms and talent agents now benchmark against.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platform subsidies become structural revenue for digital media rather than a windfall — a dependency visible three years later when Facebook reportedly offered news partners up to $3M a year for placement in its News Tab.
- Media economics split into two tiers: organizations that can sell live formats to platforms at scale, and those competing for leftover ad inventory — consolidation pressure follows whoever holds the payment relationship.
The trend: Social platforms are moving from hosting content to directly purchasing it, with Facebook's escalating payouts — from celebrity fees to contracted media deals to licensed shows — establishing the market rate for publisher video.