[4/10/17] Imagine if two news publishers dominated digital media in the way that Facebook and Google do.
The Government would not allow such a duopoly to stand. Campaigners would call for them to be broken up in the name of media plurality.
Yet by 2020 Google and Facebook are expected to take 71 per cent of all the money spent in the UK on digital advertising, according to a report by analysts OC&C.
The effect of this can already be seen and is devastating for both the news industry and for society in general.
News publishers are reaching more people than ever before both directly, via their websites, and indirectly, via social media. But they are getting an ever shrinking slice of the advertising pie. This has a direct impact on the number of journalists they are able to employ.
That’s why Press Gazette is today launching its Duopoly campaign which aims to stop Facebook and Google destroying any more of the UK journalism industry.
There is no simple solution, but broadly we are seeking a fairer deal between news publishers and the digital giants – one which fairly rewards the creators of the content on which these platforms rely.
We want Google and Facebook to become more responsible digital citizens, acting in a way that allows diverse digital news sources rather than gorging themselves on all the available digital advertising in a way which will lead smaller players to starve.
A partner at OC&C, which authored the report on UK advertising in 2020, said: “The scale and speed [of Google and Facebook’s growth] is really a call to action for media companies. By the time they get to 70 per cent of the online ad market, that doesn’t leave a lot of space left elsewhere.”
In 2015 the UK advertising market was worth more than £20bn. Of that, £2.4bn went to national and regional newspapers and their websites and £8.6bn went to online (for which mainly read Google and Facebook).
In the space of a decade the share of the UK advertising market going to UK regional and national newspapers has declined from nearly a half to little more than 10 per cent.
Money which had been spent on journalists holding those in power to account, particularly at a local level, has been transferred to two US-owned digital platforms which exist purely to exploit content rather than create it.
To add insult to injury, Google and Facebook are masters at avoiding paying tax in the UK on their vast profits.
Journalism, which is broadly a social good, is being replaced by entities which have little responsibility and are complicit in creating a good deal of harm by distributing misleading and extremist content.
Over the coming months, Press Gazette will be investigating the impact of Google and Facebook on the journalism industry and providing a forum for debate.
Both companies have the capacity to be positive partners for news publishers and already provide great benefits to us all in terms of increasing the reach of brands and enabling new people to discover our content.
But if that is at the expense of the advertising income which consumer publishers need to survive then it is not a price worth paying.
Here are some of the ideas and themes Press Gazette is going to explore in the coming months:
