News Corp and Facebook agree deal for Australian news

Facebook has agreed a three-year deal with News Corp, one of Australia’s largest legacy media companies, owner of the Australian and news.com.au, to pay for news content that will feature in Facebook’s News tab in the country

Why it matters

In a significant about-face from the social network, which had initially resisted the deal-making that Google had pursued in order to avoid the pressure of the News Media Bargaining Code, Facebook’s agreement with one of the most financially and politically powerful media firms in Australia points to the intended effect of the law: to achieve deals without engaging its mechanisms.

Facebook News

• Facebook News is a section of the social network specifically for news, where users receive a curated and personalised list of news stories away from the more friends-and-family focused main feed. Facebook has said it pays publishers “for content that is not already on the platform”.
• News Corp Australia’s reach extends across major national papers as well as large regional titles like the Daily Telegraph in New South Wales.
• It will extend an existing agreement with Facebook for Sky News Australia Content.
• It adds to another such deal News Corp reached with Facebook in the US in 2019. The media company now enjoys agreements with Facebook, Google, and Apple.
  

Background

• The deal follows the passing into law of Australia’s controversial News Media Bargaining Code, whose aggressive bargaining and arbitration clauses designed to strengthen publishers’ hands in negotiating with big tech has spurred deal-making behind closed doors. Such was Facebook’s opposition to the deal that, on February 17, Google blocked the sharing of all news links on its platform in Australia.
• News Corp struck a similar deal to license news content on Google’s News Showcase in mid-February.

Key quote

“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,” said Robert Thompson, News Corp CEO in a statement, adding that such businesses had “been under extreme duress for more than a decade”.

Sourced from News Corp, BBC, WARC