Facebook signs deal with Murdoch’s News Corp Australia after media law

The three-year partnership was announced on Monday. This will allow content from much of Rupert Murdoch’s local media empire, including the Australian newspaper, to be featured on Facebook News – a section of the platform that curates coverage of selected publishers. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The deal contributes to a series of new partnerships that News Corp signed in Australia in recent weeks.

Sky News Australia, a broadcaster owned by a local News Corp subsidiary, struck a separate deal with the Facebook (FB), which “is based on an existing agreement”, News Corp (NWS) said in a statement Monday.
Last month, the conglomerate – which includes much of the Australian media and some UK media, as well as the United States’ Wall Street Journal and New York Post – also revealed an agreement with Google (GOOGL).

The partnership allows News Corp’s publications in the U.S., UK and Australia to be featured on Google’s News Showcase platform. But it is also expected to include the development of a subscription platform, sharing ad revenues and investing in audio and video journalism.

Google declined to share the terms of the agreement, but News Corp claimed it would receive “significant payments”.

Australian law is hailed as 'a major victory for the news industry' with ramifications around the world
News Corp is already collaborating with Facebook in the United States, where its publications are paid to appear on the social network.

But the company has been pushing for new rules in Australia, where the debate has been heated over a media code that forces Big Tech to pay publishers for news shared on its platforms.

The debate peaked last month, just days before the law was passed. That’s when Facebook decided to ban news content in Australia in anticipation of the law, forcing the pages of media organizations and even some essential unrelated services to be unavailable. He ended up restoring the news content there after the government agreed to make some changes to the legislation.
Before that, Google also threatened to withdraw its search engine in the country. Subsequently, it took a different direction, entering into partnerships with some of the largest media organizations in the country, including News Corp, to anticipate the law.
How Facebook managed to 'forsake' Australia while Google came out on top
News Corp. was one of the law’s staunchest advocates. The company was forced to cut jobs and close dozens of newspapers in Australia last year, saying the coronavirus pandemic scam had been too big to handle.
In a statement on Monday, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson alluded to the company’s long battle, arguing that “Rupert and [co-chairman] Lachlan Murdoch led a global debate, while others in our industry remained silent or at rest. “

“This digital outcome has been going on for over a decade,” he added. “The Facebook deal is a milestone in transforming journalism’s terms of trade and will have a material and significant impact on our Australian news business.”

Kerry Flynn contributed to this report.

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