Facebook is reportedly paying more than $50 million to media companies and stars to create exclusive videos for its live-streaming service.
Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire has signed nearly 140 contracts with 17 of them worth more than $1 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.
CNN, The New York Times, Vox media, Tastemade, Mashable and the Huffington Post are among the media companies that will be paid to create content for Facebook Live. Kevin Hart, Gordon Ramsay, Deepak Chopra and Russell Wilson are celebrities that are also in on the action.
“We wanted to invite a broad set of partners so we could get feedback from a variety of different organizations about what works and what doesn’t,” Facebook vice president Justin Osofsky told the WSJ.
The highest-paid content creator is BuzzFeed, which will take in $3.05 million for broadcasting live between March 2016 and March 2017. The New York Times will receive $3.03 million and CNN is set to receive $2.5 million.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and American Museum of Natural History are also listed among content creators that Facebook will pay. Internet celebrities Logan Paul, Andrew Bachelor and Lele Pons, DJs Armin Van Buuren and Hardwell and FC Barcelona are also expected to create Facebook Live content.