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The Commerce Commission has formed a preliminary view NPA should be able to bargain with Google and Meta on behalf of its news publisher members.
The Commerce Commission has in a preliminary decision found the News Publishers Association of New Zealand (NPA) should be able to collectively bargain with Google and Meta.
The decision would allow the collective to negotiate with Google and Meta on the terms and conditions of displaying their work and content on the various internet platforms operated by the digital giants. The proposed arrangement would be for a period of 10 years.
The NPA represents publishers of all New Zealand daily and Sunday newspapers, their websites and their mobile platforms, including Stuff. It supports co-ordination of publisher interests in many areas, including government affairs, media freedom and advertising standards.
The preliminary view of the Commerce Commission was reached because the potential benefits of collective bargaining were likely to outweigh any possible harms, a statement said.
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Allowing news media companies to pool their resources and reduce transaction costs of negotiations was one of those benefits, they said. Also, collective bargaining would give the chance for smaller media companies to be in a better position to negotiate, than they would be if they were to go in by themselves.
The Commerce Commission said the collective bargaining arrangement would result in public benefits, including improved production of news content, “particularly in relation to local or regional news”.
The arrangement was not expected to generate any “meaningful public detriment”, and so the Commission was “satisfied that authorisation would be likely to generate a net public benefit and such a benefit to the public that it should be permitted”.
Provisional authorisation to start collective bargaining was given back on April 11 – which allowed the companies to start their talks with Meta and Google while the Commission worked its way towards making a decision.
Solen Feyissa/Unsplash
NZ media were told in April they could start negotiations while the Commerce Commission worked on a final decision.
NPA general manager Brook Cameron said the decision meant the NPA was one step closer to redressing the power imbalance that exists between independent New Zealand publishers and digital giants.
“The digital giants have built trillion-dollar businesses on the back of free and unfettered access to journalism made and paid for by others, while also taking a dominant share of the advertising market that has traditionally funded that journalism.”
The ability to collectively bargain will help get companies fair payment and secure a thriving media, she said, which is critical to a healthy democracy.
The decision reached by the commission is a preliminary one and submissions can still be made up until the end of August.
