Facebook Live tests show ads during breaks

Facebook is now testing short video ads that will play during breaks in Facebook Live broadcasts so when you are watching some Live Streams, expect some of these popping out during breaks. This won\’t be a surprise for anyone who follows Facebook. Video ads are lucrative for Facebook and a Live product devoid of ads would cause the company to miss out on tons of potential ad revenue.

Apparently, a small group of publishers can insert a short ad break in the Live videos to make this thing work. These short ads can appear every after 5 minutes or so within a live stream. Bad news is it can last to up to 15 seconds. Skipping ad option is still unconfirmed. If this become successful, advertisers will soon be able to make custom ads dedicated to be shown during Live broadcasts.

Ads will be of the same theme as the video topic, so don\’t expect watching a totally different ad from the subject of the video that you are watching. Payments to the publishers will still be arranged in the future.

It’s also not clear yet if publishers will be able to set a designated “commercial break” where all viewers see an ad at once, or if Facebook will randomly commandeer a Live stream with a 15 second ad. If it’s the former and publishers can initiate a designated commercial break (and potentially generate revenue), it could actually be an ad product that publishers and content creators ends up liking.