Listen to this articleBy Alexandra Bruell
The New York Times is getting around $100 million from Google over three years as part of a broad deal that allows the Alphabet unit to feature Times content on some of its platforms, according to people familiar with the matter.
The publisher announced its deal with Google earlier this year, which it described as an expanded agreement that included content distribution and subscriptions, as well as using Google tools for marketing and ad-product experimentation.
The Times, which didn’t provide details about the financial terms of its deal at the time, declined to comment beyond its earlier announcement.
“We don’t share the details of commercial agreements with partners,” a Google spokeswoman said.
The deal gives the Times an additional revenue driver as news publishers are bracing for an advertising-market slowdown. The company posted revenue of $2.31 billion last year, up 11% from a year earlier.
It also more than offsets the revenue that the Times is losing after Facebook parent Meta Platforms last year told publishers it wouldn’t renew contracts to feature their content in its Facebook News tab.
The Wall Street Journal at the time reported that Meta had paid annual fees of just over $20 million to the Times.
The deal includes the Times’ participation in Google News Showcase, a product that pays publishers to feature their content on Google News and some other Google platforms, some of the people said.
The product has yet to be launched in the U.S., but is available in other countries including Germany, Brazil and Australia.
News Corp, parent of Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., is among the publishers that previously have reached agreements with Google over Showcase and other elements. News Corp in early 2021 announced a multiyear deal with Google and said the deal and other partnerships would generate a combined annual revenue of more than $100 million.
Beyond the Journal, News Corp owns news organisations in Australia and the U.K., as well as Barron’s, MarketWatch and the New York Post in the U.S.
Publishers that have struggled to compete for digital ad revenue with Google and Facebook have long criticised the tech giants for not paying for the news content that is featured and shared on their platforms. Dow Jones parent News Corp was among the critics.
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