Regional publishers voice dire warnings amid Meta’s move to abandon content deals

Some of the nation’s smaller news publishers are at severe risk of closing amid the fallout over Meta refusing to negotiate to pay for content used on its platforms.

Country Press Australia president Andrew Schreyer says some smaller regional publishers are cutting it so fine financially that Meta’s withdrawal of funding could force them to shut down.

Mr Schreyer’s dire warning was delivered before the parliamentary inquiry into social media in Canberra on Friday, which also heard from the country’s top media executives including News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller, Nine Entertainment chief executive officer Mike Sneesby and Seven West Media boss Jeff Howard.

“I speak to a lot of our 230 member publishers quite often and some members who have deals — for example over Christmas — had to pay staff out of their own pockets to keep going,” Mr Schreyer told the hearing.

“That’s how close to the wire some of these mastheads are running and so to pull Meta’s funds out of a business … means they would just close.”

Designating Meta under the news media bargaining code would require the tech giant to negotiate “payment for news content” deals with Australian publishers, or face fines of up to 10 per cent of its local revenue.

Mr Schreyer told the hearing that CPA has commercial agreements with Meta and Google and Meta’s announcement earlier this year that it will not renew its agreement with publishers is a “significant blow to our industry and newspaper closures will certainly be one of the results of Meta’s withdrawal”.

“The announcement by Meta has been met with anger, frustration, disappointment, worry and concern among our member publishers,” he said.

“We also worry for the bigger picture — for the toll Meta’s unchecked and outrageous behaviour continues to extract from the communities we are part of.”

Mr Schreyer said Meta should be held to account and designated under the code, echoing similar calls from Mr Miller, Mr Sneesby and Mr Howard.

“We encourage the government to insert a ‘must carry news’ clause in the code forcing them to negotiate with publishers or impose a tax on Meta’s Australian revenue,” Mr Schreyer said.

Australian Community Media’s managing director Tony Kendall also told Friday’s hearing of his concern about Meta’s decision to pull funding in Australia and the damage it could do to Australians’ access to credible and reliable news and information. “The rise of the digital platforms, such as Meta, has decimated the ad revenues needed to fund quality journalism,” he said.

“As a business, we have participated in social media to help grow our audience and because we believe users of those platforms deserve access to credible local news and information.

“But the platforms have used our content and brand equity to build their profits to the point where they are now monopolies.”

He said ACM’s “group deal” was set to expire in August and it involved 55 per cent of the group’s titles. The money from Meta received is distributed to its mastheads.

Mr Kendall also said Meta’s decision to abandon its commitment to publishers “will mean ACM, and many other publishers, will be forced to close titles”. “Meta’s decision will rob communities of independent, credible and trusted voices,” he said.

“If Facebook were to take their bat and ball and leave this country … probably some other platform will fill the void quickly because people will still need and want that information at their fingerprints, particularly during times of crisis.”

CPA executive director Peter Kennedy told the hearing that not all of its members are part of the Meta commercial agreement but it was still vital to the survival of publishers.

“Those funds are distributed across the organisation as per the agreement with Meta, our agreement is due to expire early next year,” he said.