Australia’s Nine Entertainment Co has officially formalised its content deals with Google and Facebook after months of negotiations.
It’s being speculated that Nine will receive around $45 million annually, and hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years, which will allow Google and Facebook to publish the company’s content.
It follows Australia’s federal government introducing the so-called media bargaining code earlier this year, which requires social media companies to pay for their news content.
“The deal with Facebook is for the supply of news video clips and access to digital news articles on Facebook news products,” Nine’s ASX statement said.
“The 5-year agreement with Google includes the supply of news content (excluding video) for Google’s News Showcase and other products. Google will also expand its marketing initiatives across Nine’s platforms.”
It’s being speculated that Nine will receive around $45 million annually, and hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years, which will allow Google and Facebook to publish the company’s content.
Nine has not publicly commented on how the money will be spent, but former CEO Hugh Marks says it will be invested creating quality journalism.
What is the so-called media bargaining code?
At the beginning of this year, media bargaining laws introduced by the federal government.
The laws set out a framework that forces Google and Facebook to broker commercial deals with media companies for the value they gain from having news content on their platforms.
In mid February, Facebook had blocked the sites and stopped Australian users from sharing or posting news links.
The government’s media bargaining code then became law a week later, ending a concerning process and threats from Google and Facebook to reduce services in Australia.
“Google threatened to withdraw search in Australia; Facebook cancelled news. A nation was held to ransom – and it surrendered. As long as the platforms persuade enough desperate news publishers to sign take-it-or-leave-it deals, there will now be no fair, independent arbitration,” Sir Rothermere -whose company owns the Daily Mail , wrote in a letter to the Financial Times at the time.
The European Publishers Council and News Media Europe have called for a similar code to be implemented overseas.
Following the leader – what happens now?
Nine is the third major media company to strike a deal with the tech giants.
Sky News Australia, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, and Seven West Media have also signed deal with both Google and Facebook.
Nine’s close rival, Seven West Media, was among one of the first major Australian media companies to strike an agreement with Google under new media bargaining codes.
Similarly, Facebook agreed to a partnership with Seven just days after sensationally removing all news content from the Australian market earlier this year.
These agreements will see the tech giants now pay to access news content.