Sources: Facebook in talks with media buyers to expand Watch to more individual creators with a revenue split from ads, similar to YouTube
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook's video business has been built top-down: a revenue share with big publishers like the NBA and Fox Sports in Suggested Videos in 2015, then a mid-roll ad format tested with a 55/55-style split matching YouTube in early 2017, then the Watch tab launch for original content that August. Alongside, Facebook guaranteed monthly payments to publishers for a minimum volume of produced video, locking in supply from media companies.
The reported talks with media buyers mark the next step: opening that same ad-split machinery to individual creators, not just contracted publishers. That would turn Watch from a curated originals destination into a broader creator platform — and put it in direct structural competition with YouTube for the people who make the videos.
First-order effects
- Individual creators gain a second major ad-revenue venue beyond YouTube, with Facebook reportedly mirroring the same 55% publisher split it already pays on Watch.
- Media buyers get a new stream of creator inventory to purchase against, expanding Watch's ad supply past the publisher-produced shows Facebook currently funds.
Second-order effects
- The publishers receiving guaranteed monthly payments for exclusive-feeling original shows suddenly compete on the same platform with individual creators producing cheaper, higher-frequency video.
- YouTube faces pressure to defend its creator base, since the economics it pioneered are now being matched dollar-for-dollar by its largest social rival.
Third-order effects
- If the expansion holds, Watch's structure converges with YouTube's — an open creator economy funded by mid-roll ads — and Facebook's earlier publisher-guarantee model becomes a bridge strategy rather than the end state, a direction its later funding program pairing publishers with creators already hints at.
- Creator loyalty in online video shifts from platform-exclusive contracts to whoever offers the best blended ad economics, making ad-split rates the competitive variable across video platforms.
The trend: Social platforms are converging on YouTube's creator ad-revenue-split model, with Watch's move from publisher originals to individual creators as a key data point.