Facebook eyes selling premium video subscriptions

Facebook starting a “small test” of subscription video on demand.

The service will begin rolling out to test users in the U.S. and include content from BritBox, CollegeHumor’s Dropout, MotorTrend and Tastemade Plus.

Facebook is handling payment processing, though there’s no word if it’s taking a cut of revenue during the trial.

Each of these separate, standalone streaming services are currently available elsewhere and Facebook will sell them for the same price as elsewhere.

Back in 2018, Facebook announced plans to start taking up to 30% of revenue from content creators — but not until January 2020.

Facebook reportedly has approached HBO and Showtime about selling their subscription streaming services via its platform, but these are not included in this round of testing and there’s no reports of the status of this idea.