Friday 2nd October: Google to pay publishers more than $1 billion to create and curate

October 02, 2020

Good morning and Happy Friday! Today's roundup is brought to you by Peter.

Seriously, I'm getting whiplash trying to follow the evolution of the relationship between Google and journalism. One minute it's all, 'Nah! We don't need you. We can turn you off anytime we want' and 'What? We hardly make any money from you guys'. Now it's 'Oh OK, here's a billion dollars'.

This announcement reported by Axios puts more detail on reports back in June that the search giant was going to license publisher content and is billed as Google's biggest financial commitment to the news industry. Execs say the nicer half of the duopoly is planning to pay publishers more than $1 billion over the next three years to 'create and curate high-quality journalism' for a new set of features called Google News Showcase.

Google is positioning the News Showcase as a way for publishers to add value, involving more branding and editorial curation than straight search delivers. It may also develop as a way for publishers to push subscriptions with paywalled articles free to access, but with an in-built subscription mechanism.

We're generally happy when the tech giants put money back into journalism, but... this new money is an extension of the existing news licensing program and the bit that's problematic about that is that the money is restricted to 'select' publishers. We'd still like to see a fix that works for everyone.

Facing the threat of closure, the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald was rescued in February by local businessman Andy Barr in February. Six months on and the paper is back in the black with additional staff and a digital strategy. This type of investment isn't on Google scale, but it's invaluable to the local community.

Vox Media has announced Concert Ad Manager, a self-service tool giving brands the ability to set up advertising campaigns at scale, across a network of premium publishers. A bit like Facebook Ads manager, but without the posts from your racist uncle Cyril.

Mr Christopher Sutcliffe has been writing about how video has long been replaced by the almighty paywall as publishing's favourite pivot. But that doesn't mean video is over, just that publishers need to look to it as part of a long-term audience engagement strategy.

This week's podcast:

Director at Cognitive Publishing Roy Rowlands on working in a family publishing business with a trillion-pound audience, going all-digital with their B2B titles, and the benefits of being in Manchester. He also outlines how they've adapted in lockdown, including the reasons behind their decision not to go virtual with events.

Our Esther was announced joint overall winner of the FIPP & UPM Rising Star Awards 2020 yesterday. WOO HOO!!! She shares the top spot with Rachel Brown of National Geographic. To say Chris and I are dead chuffed for Esther would be a major understatement.

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS from the both of us 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻