Local news keeps communities informed and connected, but tech giants hoard the revenue as publishers bear the costs. PINF Campaign and Comms Manager Beckie Shuker explains why PINF is calling for “must carry” rules and a Local News Fund to ensure fair deals for publishers.
Last month, we announced our plan to lead a Local News Campaign to drive positive change and help local news thrive in the UK. We want to regenerate local media so that communities in every local authority district in the UK benefit from journalism that speaks to them, for them and with them.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be introducing each of the three pillars of the new campaign, ensuring that: the BBC works in partnership with local news, big tech treat local news providers fairly and local authorities support local news providers.
The second focus of the Local News Campaign is on big tech and ensuring that local news providers get a fair share of revenue from the news that Google uses. We’ve created a new briefing calling on decision-makers to support backstop options for the upcoming negotiations, including a must-carry provision and contributions to a new strategic fund.
Making News Work for Communities: backstop options to rebalance the platform-publisher relationship
Big tech firms have completely disrupted the economic market for professional journalism in the last couple of decades, leaving millions at risk of misinformation and disinformation, in turn damaging community cohesion.
Local news makes value for big tech by supplying trustworthy information that’s created for and with the communities that form the user base of these platforms, but big tech firms hoard the lion’s share of the revenue.
Research commissioned by PINF from FehrAdvice estimates that Google generates £2.2 billion in revenue from UK news outlets, almost none of which is shared with publishers – particularly local outlets.
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) has the potential to address this imbalance of power by creating a bargaining code for platforms and publishers, but international experience shows that big tech firms will do everything they can to delay and frustrate implementation of the code.
The intention of the new codes is for publishers to negotiate with big tech and carve out a new balance in the media ecosystem. Last year, PINF advocated to ensure small publishers can bargain collectively for a fair share of revenue. We hope that this will be achieved within a reasonable timeframe, but we’re not confident that the codes alone will be successful.
As PINF and others have pointed out, the timeline set out by the CMA to develop a bargaining code, impose conduct requirements and proceed to a final offer mechanism will take a considerable length time to conclude, time that many local news outlets don’t have.
Local news publishers are having to fight to fulfil their valuable role in providing communities with the information they need - urgent action is needed to support them and ensure the new regime works as well for its small parties as it does for the largest corporations.
The first backstop option we’re proposing is that platforms ‘must carry’ local public interest news, ensuring that platforms cannot withdraw news from search services as retaliation against publishers during compensation negotiations.
This tactic goes all the way back to 2013, when Google removed German news providers from search during copyright negotiations in the country, demanding that they side-step proposed new licensing agreements.
The platform has repeated this action in every negotiation since. In January 2021, Google 'experimented' with removing local news sites from search results in Australia, before swerving negotiation altogether, while Meta blocked all news in the country. In Canada, Meta blocked Canadian news links on Facebook and Instagram in summer 2023 – at a time when many people were dependent on social media for news during severe wildfires.
However, during negotiations in 2019, the French competition authority swiftly put a stop to this tactic, implementing a must-carry measure ensuring that Google could not withdraw or deprioritise news from search without incurring a hefty fine.
There are two recent examples to draw from in the UK where must carry provisions have been used to protect journalistic content. The Online Safety Act (2023) set out a temporary must carry provision to ensure that news content isn’t interrupted by content moderation required by the legislation.
The Media Act (2024) will create a new regime requiring that digital TV streaming platforms must carry and prominently feature UK public service broadcasting (PSB) services (e.g. BBC iPlayer, ITVX and other PSB apps and content).
Our second backstop option requires firms who are designated to take part in negotiations to contribute to the Local News Fund.
Big tech firms have frustrated bargaining efforts by offering side deals to publishers to sidestep transparent and accountable regulation. For example, in South Africa, Google struck a deal with the Association of Independent Publishers to establish the Digital News Transformation Fund; worth R114-million (£4.8 million), the programme will run for 3 years.
Given the urgent need for support to sustain outlets facing extraordinary financial pressure, it is understandable that publishers would accept these deals rather than await uncertain outcomes from potentially lengthy and likely highly disruptive bargaining processes.
PINF is working on establishing a Local News Fund, which would support journalists to build innovative new models of local news, without the pressure of meeting current market demands that have been fuelled by tech companies. A requirement for big firms to contribute to this fund would massively help to regenerate local news in the UK.
While the new UK’s new bargaining codes are a much-needed step towards addressing the imbalance of power between platforms and publishers, they alone will not solve the problems caused by years of entrenched monopoly.
More must be done to prevent tech giants from exploiting these dominant positions, including introduction of a ‘must carry’ provision for public interest news and contributions to the Local News Fund to ensure communities retain access to essential information.
PINF will be building support with decision-makers for these backstops, and providing evidence and research to support local media to rebalance the platform-provider relationship, ensuring communities can continue to access the information they need. If you want to get involved in the Local News Campaign or find out more about our work, please get in touch.
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