Facebook adding mid-roll ad breaks in videos with publisher rev share

In January last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said half-a-billion-people watched video on Facebook every day, accounting for 100 million hours’ worth every single day. This was before all the push for live began in earnest.

Now they are trying to figure out how to make money off of it. Facebook is going to test mid-roll ads. Ads will interrupt video at the 20-second mark, according to Recode. Videos will have to be at least a minute and a half in length. Mid-roll ads will need to be 15 seconds or less, according to Marketingland.

Publishers will get 55% of the revenue generated with the video.

Publishers have embraced live. The Washington Post, for example, is producing 175 live video every month. Heck, here at our TV station in Huntsville, Alabama, we’re doing 5-6 every day as well as our 6pm newscast live on Facebook.

But getting revenue from the live videos has been another story. Everybody, including Facebook, has struggled.

The other difficulty for video has been discovery. Tons of live content, but how do people find it? Recently, Facebook launched a prominent video icon which makes it easier to find videos from people and publishers you follow. I reported on this last year after being in the beta rollout.

So when Zuckerberg says video is the future of Facebook, I guess it’s safe to say he means it. Now let’s see if anybody can make money off of it.