News Corp, Facebook strike deal for news content
The multi-year agreement will see the tech giant pay the media company for displaying its news content on the Facebook News product.
PL
Australia’s two biggest media companies, News Corp and Nine Entertainment, have struck long-awaited content deals with Facebook, with the social media giant finally agreeing to pay news organisations for their journalism when it appears on the digital platform.
News Corp (publisher of The Australian) announced on Tuesday it had reached a three-year agreement with Facebook that will see the tech giant pay the media company for displaying its Australian news content on the Facebook News product.
The monetary value of the deal has not been disclosed.
“The agreement with Facebook is a landmark in transforming the terms of trade for journalism, and will have a material and meaningful impact on our Australian news businesses,” News Corp’s chief executive, Robert Thomson, said.
The agreement follows a similar payment-for-content deal struck between News Corp and Google one month ago, under which Google agreed to make “significant payments” for displaying News Corp’s journalism across the world on its Google News Showcase.
The deal with Facebook is not a global contract; it involves News Corp Australia and includes The Australian, news.com.au, major metropolitan mastheads like The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and The Courier-Mail and regional and community publications.
Sky News Australia has also reached a deal with Facebook that builds on an existing arrangement.
In the US, an agreement reached in 2019 ensures News Corp publications, including The Wall Street Journal, receive payments in exchange for providing access to additional stories for Facebook News.
Following the announcement of the deal between News Corp and Facebook on Tuesday morning, Nine newspapers reported that a letter of intent had been signed between the social media giant and Nine Entertainment. A Nine spokesman told The Australian: “When we have anything to announce, we will do so to the ASX, as is appropriate.”
Seven West Media signed a letter of intent on February 23 to provide news content to Facebook, with smaller organisations such as Private Media, Schwartz Media and Solstice Media also reaching commercial agreements with the digital platform in recent weeks.
The ABC, SBS and the Guardian Australia remain in discussions with Facebook.
News Corp’s deal with the tech giants follows the introduction of the mandatory news media bargaining code passed by parliament last month.
Under the code, digital platforms will be “designated” only if the government deems there is a major bargaining imbalance with news media organisations.
By reaching commercial agreements with most of Australia’s news media companies, the tech giants unlikely to fall foul of the code, providing they don’t walk away from the deals.
Negotiations between Facebook and both News Corp and Nine reportedly stalled a few weeks ago when the digital platform restricted access to news on its site for its 17 million Australian users. That ban was overturned after a week.
More Coverage
Tight NRL finale draws strong TV audience
The ratings for the closely-fought match between the Panthers and the Melbourne Storm were up on last year’s NRL centrepiece but were easily outstripped by the TV audience for the lopsided AFL Grand Final a week earlier.
ABC ombudsman changes ‘sympathetic’ Hezbollah stories
The taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s watchdog received more than a dozen complaints about an article that readers claimed was ‘too sympathetic to Hezbollah’.