The Australian Financial Review (AFR) is advanced in negotiations to sell its content direct to media monitoring companies rather than go through Copyright Agency, a collecting body offering blanket access to titles.
Nine Entertainment's national business title follows News Corp's national title The Australian which withdrew earlier this year from the Copyright Agency blanket licensing arrangements, reported exclusively by AdNews in September.
The media groups need to squeeze as much as possible from non traditional sources of revenue. Accelerated change from COVID-19 means circulation and subscription revenue now outstrips advertising, the traditional flow of cash from news.
The AFR, with its deep reporting of business in Australia, is a must-have title for companies seeking alerts via media monitoring.
A Nine spokesperson: "The Australian Financial Review is moving to a model where we negotiate directly with media monitoring services. This is to ensure we have the right structure which appropriately recognises the value of the leading and unique business coverage that is offered through our newspapers and online."
And the Copyirght Agency has confirmed that the AFR has given notice to withdraw its content rights.
The Copyright Agency licence provides media monitoring organisations with rights to copy and communicate news media content across more than 2,000 publishers, including Australian Associated Press, the ABC, Australian Community Media, ARE Media (formerly Bauer), News Corp, Nine, MacPherson Media, Private Media, Star News Group and West Australian Newspapers.
The Copyright Agency‘s annual report for the 2019 financial year, shows $17.6 million revenue from media monitoring firms.
The Copyright Agency is fighting a series of legal actions with content users wanting to reduce the fees they pay for using content.
However, in September Streem signed a new deal with the agency, breaking ranks with other media monitoring agencies as they continue court action for a better deal.
The commercial details of the agreemnet have not been released.
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