News Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have reached a three-year agreement in which the search giant will pay for news, a long-sought truce in a pitched battle over the value of journalism on online platforms.
The two will partner to develop a subscription platform and cultivate audio and video journalism as well as share advertising revenue, News Corp. said in a statement Wednesday.
“This has been an exciting cause for our company for over a decade and I am pleased that the terms of trade are changing, not just for News Corp., but for all publishers,” said News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson, in the statement.
News Corp. shares hit an all-time high of $ 24.22 at the opening of New York trading, but were down 1.7% to $ 23.38 at 10:30 a.m.
Led by CEO Rupert Murdoch and Thomson, News Corp. has been the loudest voice among publishers who want Google and Facebook Inc. to pay them for the rights to host articles on search and social platforms. That momentum has become more urgent as Google and Facebook have taken a bigger share of the digital advertising market, squeezing out the media that depend on that revenue to support their journalism.
The deal includes titles such as Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and New York Post, as well as about 30 local and regional News Corp. newspapers in Australia.
Australian battle
Google and News Corp. continue to fight in Australia over a similar problem. Google has been fighting an Australian bill, supported by News Corp., that would force the search giant and Facebook to pay publishers for the value their stories generate on the internet giants’ digital platforms. Google has even threatened to shut down its Australian search engine if the proposal becomes law.
Last week Microsoft Corp., owner of rival search engine Bing, said the United States should adopt its own version of the proposed Australian law.
News Corp. launched a site called Knewz.com last year as an alternative to Google search, in the hopes that it will become the new way readers search for journalism.
It was intended to help publishers recoup some of the advertising money lost on Google and Facebook. But some social media users made fun of its name and complained about its striking yellow design.
Meanwhile, Google has started paying certain media outlets, including those in the UK, Australia and Argentina, to display articles on its news app and has set aside $ 1 billion to cover the first three years of the show. The payments are part of a new product called the Google News Showcase, which will allow the media to package their stories, as well as video and audio, within Google News. Google has signed deals with more than 500 publications around the world, according to Don Harrison, Google’s president of global partnerships.
The deal is another sign that the public pressure Murdoch’s media empire has brought to bear on tech giants is beginning to pay off. In 2019, Facebook announced agreements to pay some publishers to share stories within a dedicated news section of its main application. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the plan at an event in New York with Thomson of News Corp.
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She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.