Google will pay publishers $1 billion over the next three years for their content, the company’s latest effort to diffuse tensions over its dominance of the news industry.
The company said Thursday that it has signed agreements for its news partnership program with nearly 200 publications in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the U.K. and Australia.
“This financial commitment – our biggest to date – will pay publishers to create and curate high-quality content for a different kind of online news experience,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post.
On Thursday, Google’s News Showcase is launching in Brazil and Germany, featuring story panels that let publishers package stories with features like timelines. It will appear first on Google News on Android, then Apple iOS, before it is rolled out to Google Discover and Search.
The publications that have signed up include Germany’s Der Spiegel and Stern and Brazil’s Folha de S.Paulo.
Other features like video, audio and daily briefings are also in the works. Pichai said Google is working to expand the program to other countries, namely India, Belgium and the Netherlands. He did not say whether the U.S. would be included.
The funding builds on a news licensing program launched by Google in June, as it seeks defuse tensions with the beleaguered news industry. News companies want Google, and its Silicon Valley rival Facebook, to pay for the news content that they siphon from commercial media while taking the lion’s share of ad revenue.
Skeptics remain, however.
The European Publishers Council said it’s an attempt by Google to stave off legislation and government action to get them to negotiate.
“Many are quite cynical about Google’s perceived strategy,” said Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the council. “By launching a product, they can dictate terms and conditions, undermine legislation designed to create conditions for a fair negotiation, while claiming they are helping to fund news production.”
The council’s members include German publisher Axel Springer and the British unit of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which have been fighting a yearslong battle to get the tech giants to pay for news stories appearing on their platforms.
The pressure has been rising over compensation in a number of countries for Google and Facebook.
Australia’s government is drafting a law to make Facebook and Google pay the country’s media companies for the news content they use by early October. Facebook has responded by threatening to block Australian news content rather than pay for it.
In France, Google has refused to show snippets of some stories as it fights government demands for license fees to publishers, as required by a recent European Union directive.
Facebook last year unveiled its own plan to pay U.S. news companies including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today for their headlines — reportedly millions of dollars in some cases. It also said in 2019 that it was investing $300 million over three years in news initiatives, with a focus on local news partnerships and third-party fact-checking.
TORONTO – Restaurant Brands International Inc. reported net income of US$357 million for its third quarter, down from US$364 million in the same quarter last year.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says its profit amounted to 79 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with 79 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the parent company of Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs, totalled US$2.29 billion, up from US$1.84 billion in the same quarter last year.
Consolidated comparable sales were up 0.3 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Restaurant Brands says it earned 93 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 90 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Fortis Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $420 million, up from $394 million in the same quarter last year.
The electric and gas utility says the profit amounted to 85 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 81 cents per share a year earlier.
Fortis says the increase was driven by rate base growth across its utilities, and strong earnings in Arizona largely reflecting new customer rates at Tucson Electric Power.
Revenue in the quarter totalled $2.77 billion, up from $2.72 billion in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Fortis says it earned 85 cents per share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 84 cents per share in the third quarter of 2023.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 82 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
TORONTO – Thomson Reuters reported its third-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago as its revenue rose eight per cent.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says it earned US$301 million or 67 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. The result compared with a profit of US$367 million or 80 cents US per diluted share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter totalled US$1.72 billion, up from US$1.59 billion a year earlier.
In its outlook, Thomson Reuters says it now expects organic revenue growth of 7.0 per cent for its full year, up from earlier expectations for growth of 6.5 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Thomson Reuters says it earned 80 cents US per share in its latest quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 82 cents US per share in the same quarter last year.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 76 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
