Facebook Says It Won’t Launch a Music Streaming Service

Rumours first began circulating following a report by Music Ally which claimed Facebook would launch an own-brand service within a matter of months. The record labels would choose which videos appear on Facebook, and Facebook and the labels would share revenue from advertising that appears alongside the videos, according to the New York Times report.

There had been reports in recent weeks that Facebook was looking to build a streaming music service that could compete with Spotify and Apple Music.

The site is already known to be planning to host music videos on its site, and will pay the same per-stream as YouTube. However, Facebook is working on something “unique and new“, as Engadget described. Billboard reports Facebook is offering the same split in ad revenue that YouTube now does – with 45 percent going to the social network, and 55 percent to rights holders – but The New York Times says Facebook has offered better deals than YouTube.

Another source said Facebook was working to creatively integrate music into its platform, but wasn’t planning anything like a Spotify-style $9.99-per-month platform.

Following on Facebook’s success with Instagram and WhatsApp, the talks with record labels would appear to be the latest effort by the company to expand beyond its core social network into a one-stop destination for sharing and consuming content such as photos and videos. Video views on Facebook are doing very well lately owing mostly to the auto play feature.

A transition into music videos is a logical next step for Zuckerberg’s company.

The social network site also has made frequent use of short clips in its new instant articles.