Facebook and News Corp reach three-year deal in Australia

News Corp has reached a deal with Facebook to provide news on the platform in Australia, according to a News Corp announcement released Monday.

“[News Corp] has reached a multi-year agreement to provide access to trusted news and information to millions of Facebook users in Australia through its Facebook News product,” the company said.

The deal includes, “The Australian national newspaper, the news.com.au news site, major metropolitan mastheads like The Daily Telegraph in New South Wales, Herald Sun in Victoria and The Courier-Mail in Queensland and regional and community publications,” according to the statement.

In a parallel agreement, Sky News Australia (also owned by News Corp) has also signed a new Facebook deal extending an existing arrangement.

“We are committed to bringing Facebook News to Australia,” Andrew Hunter, Facebook’s head of news partnerships in Australia and New Zealand, said in an emailed statement. “Together, the agreements with News Corp Australia and Sky News Australia mean that people on Facebook will gain access to premium news articles and breaking news video from News Corp’s network of national, metropolitan, rural and suburban newsrooms.”  

Through its Australian subdivision, News Corp owns at least 12 newspaper brands in Australia and several news websites along with two Vogue titles and a GQ brand. News Corp also owns The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal (via Dow Jones) and media outlets in the UK.

News Corp had reached a similar three-year deal with Google in February that would pay the company for news content shared in the search platform’s News Showcase. 

The Google deal came just before the passage of a new law designed to force both Google and Facebook to pay for news content on their platforms.

Initially, as the law was being debated, Google threatened to pull its services from Australia, but eventually backed down. Facebook actually did stop posting news articles on its platform in Australia as the law progressed through the Australian government.

However, Facebook eventually relented and allowed people to share and view links to news stories after the law was amended giving platforms and publishers more time to negotiate deals. That law was passed at the end of February.