Australia's Seven West Media announced Monday that it has signed a partnership with Google to provide news content to the Google News Showcase platform, The Market Herald and other news outlets reported.
The deal with Google is valued at more than $30 million per year, as Australia's Competition and Consumer Commission sets the stage to dispute existing policies and make the U.S. search company pay news publishers for content that appears on Google News.
Shares of Seven West Media rose 5.74% to $0.50 a share in Australia on Monday. Seven West is one of Australia's most prominent integrated media companies across print, broadcast and digital news.
The licensing deal will be subject to executing a long form agreement within the next 30 days. "This is a great outcome for Seven West Media and for Google," Seven West Media Chairman Kerry Stokes said in remarks quoted by 7News Australia.
Google's Australia chief executive officer Mel Silva said the U.S. company was "proud to support original, trusted, and quality journalism" by featuring Seven West on its platform.
The agreement also shows Seven West splitting from competitors Nine Entertainment and News Corp whose deals with Google hit a snag and instead supported laws, scheduled to be proposed this week.
The Google News Showcase is a new product available through the company's news app. Google compensates publishers for certain news stories that appear on the platform.
The Showcase, which is estimated to have $1.3 billion in investment over the next three years, was introduced in Australia early this month after being launched first in Brazil and Germany.
The agreement is expected to cover not just News Showcase but content on other Google-owned products like YouTube and Subscribe, the Sydney Morning Herald said.
Google and Facebook are projected to account for more than 80% of online advertising spending in Australia, dealing a heavy blow to newsrooms of their main source of income, and leading to widespread closures and job losses.
