News Corp Australia has reached a multimillion dollar deal with Facebook that will see its news content appear on the social media platform, following the introduction of the news media bargaining code.
As part of the three-year deal, News Corp will be paid for content to appear on the Facebook News product. The deal covers content from The Australian, news.com.au, major metropolitan mastheads such as The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and The Courier-Mail, as well as regional and community publications.
The commercial details of the agreement have not been revealed.
At the same time, Sky News Australia has also reached a new agreement with Facebook which builds on an existing arrangement between the two companies.
“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,” says Robert Thomson, News Corp chief executive.
“Mark Zuckerberg and his team deserve credit for their role in helping to fashion a future for journalism, which has been under extreme duress for more than a decade.
“Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch led a global debate while others in our industry were silent or supine as digital dysfunctionality threatened to turn journalism into a mendicant order. We are grateful to the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chair Rod Sims and his team for taking a principled stand for publishers, small and large, rural and urban, and for Australia. This digital denouement has been more than a decade in the making.”
The agreement comes after Facebook pulled news content from its platform in response to the news media bargaining code which governs how Facebook and Google will pay local news publishers for their content.
The social media giant restored news content and continued payment negotiations with local publishers after the government made key changes to the code before it was passed in late February.
“We are committed to bringing Facebook News to Australia,” says Facebook AUNZ head of news partnerships Andrew Hunter.
“Together, the agreements with News Corp Australia and Sky News Australia mean that people on Facebook will gain access to premium news articles and breaking news video from News Corp’s network of national, metropolitan, rural and suburban newsrooms.”
Seven West Media has already signed a Letter of Intent to provide news to Facebook.
The deal between Facebook and News Corp in Australia expands on the social media company’s deal with News Corp in the US where it began paying the publisher in 2019 in exchange for stories for its Facebook News.
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