News organizations stand to lose revenue worth tens of millions of dollars as Meta Platforms, Inc's (NASDAQ:META) Facebook is reassessing its commitment to paying for news, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Earlier, Facebook had compensated news publishers for featuring their content without a paywall. In 2019, Facebook agreed to three-year deals with multiple publishers, which were due for renewal in 2022. Facebook paid average annual fees of over $15 million to the Washington Post, just above $20 million to the New York Times, and more than $10 million to The Wall Street Journal, the WSJ report said.
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Publishers struggling to compete for digital ad revenue with Google and Facebook criticized the tech giants for not paying for the news content featured and shared on their platforms.
According to WSJ, by 2018, Facebook and Google got 77% of the digital advertising revenue in local markets, while 1,800 U.S. newspapers had closed down since 2004.
Facebook reportedly aims to migrate its investments toward metaverse and products to compete with ByteDance Ltd's TikTok.
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg also remained disappointed over global regulatory pressure forcing platforms like Facebook and Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google to pay publishers for news content.
In May, Facebook News architect and former NBC and CNN journalist Campbell Brown assumed a new, broader role overseeing global media partnerships.
Price Action: META shares traded higher by 0.54% at $185 in the premarket on the last check Friday.
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