The beleaguered Indian media, which has seen plenty of layoffs and shutting down of operations ever since the lockdown came into effect, is now looking up to the government to come up with some legislation to make tech giants Google and Facebook to share ad revenues.
As of now, news outlets put in all the hard yards by hiring journalists and creating content. But tech giants like Facebook and Google walk away with the huge pie of the ad money on these platforms. There is huge resentment in media companies that Facebook and Google, even though they don't produce a lot of original content, make around 73% of the online ad revenues.
In these cash-starved times, the Indian media outlets are hoping that the government intervenes and passses a law to make Facebook and Google share advertising revenue with them.
Though there is no one common 'interest group' to lobby for the Indian outlets, sources in the know confirm that some big media houses have informally sounded out the top brass of the Narendra Modi government to help in this regard.
Lion's share for the big tech cos
Indian media firms have been greatly enthused by the developments in Australia, which is mulling a law to ensure big internet companies pay media groups for the content they share.
In Australia, the situation is the same as in India. A whopping 71% of the country’s ad revenue of $5 billion, excluding classified, goes to Google and Facebook. Elsewhere in the USA, in 2018, Google earned $4.7 billion from the work done by American news publishers. That is almost equal to the entire ad revenue generated by the news industry.
Australian authorities are saying that they will force big tech companies—Google and Facebook—to share more ad revenue with news media companies. This comes after France’s competition watchdog asked Google to do something similar 10 days ago. The law is likely to be in place from July.
Global pressure on Facebook, Google
Australia had wanted these tech biggies to create a code of conduct for sharing the ad revenues. The companies apparently refused to budge. But like elsewhere, the media in Australia is in big trouble --- 51 news outlets have shut down.
In Europe, France’s competition authority too has ruled that Google must pay French publishing companies and news agencies for re-using their content. Industry reports have it that similar moves are afoot in the United States and Germany as well.
And if India too brings in a legislation, some kind of balance would certainly be struck in the high-stakes online ad revenues.
