News Broadcaster Association Demands Google To Pay For Content Usage In India

Indian publishers are seen turning up the heat on tech-giants after the Australian Parliament passed a law last month requiring Google and Facebook to pay media companies for content.

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Soon after the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) wrote to Google asking an increase in the publisher's share of advertisement revenue to 85%, the News Broadcaster Association (NBA), an apex body of private television channels has urged the tech-giant to ensure that news publishers in India are compensated like those in France, Australia, and the European countries.

Indian publishers are seen turning up the heat on tech-giants after the Australian Parliament passed a law last month requiring Google and Facebook to pay media companies for content.

"There is an urgent need to create an equitable relationship and level the playing field between global tech monopolies and traditional media and news organisations,"  Rajat Sharma, President, NBA, one of the largest self-regulatory bodies for TV news channels in the country, wrote in a letter addressed to Sanjay Gupta, Country Manager, Google India.

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According to NBA President, news organizations make heavy investments in employing anchors, journalists, and reporters to gather, verify and deliver credible information but are inadequately compensated - the largest share of advertising revenue flows disproportionately to Intermediary Technology Platforms such as Google, YouTube, Facebook etc.

"Google plays a key role in this value chain as an intermediary and plays a part in delivering this news content to its audiences albeit without sufficiently compensating the content owners. The present situation reflects the unfair distribution of advertising revenues and the advertising system's opaqueness, causing the digital news businesses to come under tremendous pressure/stress," said Rajat Sharma.

As per the NBA, advertising revenues form the backbone of the news broadcasters. However, they see their share of the advertising pie shrinking in the digital space since technology giants are taking away the significant chunk, leaving news broadcasters with a nominal share.

Countries like Australia, France, and other European countries have taken the lead in addressing/rectifying this power imbalance through legislative enactments which ensure that Google, Facebook, and other internet tech giants adequately pay news publishers for their highest quality news content.

Google has recently agreed to compensate and pay publishers in France, Australia, and the European Union.

The news channel association has asked Google to look into the matter and employ universal parity principles in dealing with news content owners.

Seeking a meeting with the Google India head, NBA President said: "Consequently, we request you to urgently look into the matter and examine the issues at play to ensure the ecosystem remains sustainable. We would be happy to have a meeting through VC in this regard. Kindly indicate the date and time for the VC."