Google has announced that it will be paying news publishers for high-quality content in its new licensing program set to debut later this year. The program will help licensed publishers monetize their content through delving deep into complex stories. The program aims to support publishers as they report on important news despite their financial challenges.
A blog post by the company’s VP for Product Management Brad Bender revealed that the company has already signed deals with publishers in Germany, Brazil, and Australia and plans to reach other countries soon. Publishers in the agreement include Australia’s Schwartz Media, The Conversation and Solstice Media, Germany’s Der Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, and Rheinische Post, and Brazil’s Diarios Associados and A Gazeta.
The program will help publishers explore new markets and gain commercial benefits by finding new audiences for premium content.
The search giant will also pay publishers to allow users to access select premium articles locked behind paywalls. This will increase the audience numbers for publishers, raking in readers who could not pay premium subscriptions.
Google will first launch the new product on Google News and Discover.
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A study by the News Media Alliance reveals that the company rakes in an estimated $ 4.7 billion in revenue, relying on news content to drive consumer engagement with Google products. However, the company does not pay publishers for using their content. On the other hand, Google sends users to news sites for over 24 billion times a month, allowing publishers to make money through ads and subscriptions.
Last year, Google opted to change how it displays European publishers’ stories after mounting pressure to pay publishers arising from new copyright laws. The company chose to publish headlines instead of display snippets in search results, and only display thumbnail images of stories if publishers provided them for free.
