Google has committed R688-million to support South Africa’s under-pressure media industry, alongside a separate initiative aimed at fostering its long-term growth.
This follows the release of the media and digital platforms market inquiry final report by the Competition Commission on Thursday. It marks an about-turn from earlier this year, when the US search giant denied claims by the commission that it has extracted disproportionate value from South African news publishers while contributing to the local news media’s decline.
Falling advertising revenue and audiences’ limited willingness or capacity to pay for subscriptions have resulted in smaller newsrooms. Meanwhile, digital platforms have intensified these challenges by drawing audiences away from the news media and capturing the advertising income that once supported traditional news outlets.
The head of the inquiry, Competition Commission chief economist James Hodge, told journalists in Johannesburg on Thursday that the regulator found that Google’s search algorithm favoured foreign media over community and vernacular outlets, with Microsoft showing a similar bias on MSN.
On social media, Meta Platforms properties and Elon Musk’s X were found to have deprioritised news links, reducing referral traffic. This while misinformation continued to grow as platforms promoted engagement over credible news.
Google was found to dominate the advertising technology stack by monopolising the ad servers used by publishers to manage and sell digital inventory. It has bundled its own ad exchange that favours Google’s systems through lower fees and access to third-party bid data.
“This means both advertisers and publishers are effectively compelled to use Google tools, resulting in high commissions on programmatic advertising,” said Hodge.
Funding breakdown
It also found that artificial intelligence chatbots and large language models have scraped online news content, without compensation, to use it train AI systems and generate responses to user queries.
Hodge said that while news represents a small portion of total training data, it does raise concerns about the future value of original journalism.
The funding package from Google includes (but is not limited to):
- R71-million/year for five years for content on Google News Showcase for national publishers or broadcasters;
- An AI Innovation Fund of R45-million/year for three years; and
- R38-million/year for three years for a Digital News Transformation Fund.
Google has also agreed to:
- Launch and promote tools that allow South African users to select local news media as their preferred sources in news search results;
- Provide individual media support to improve their website performance via Core Web Vitals;
- Offer AI training for small independent and community media;
- Provide a toolkit from Offerwall that facilitates micropayments for news stories; and
- Establish an experimental African News Innovation Forum for African publishers.
Meta has agreed to provide resources and training to South African media for content strategies to enhance visibility and reach on its platforms. It will also provide quarterly workshops that will assist with AI digital literacy and optimal use of ad credits.
TikTok will introduce new publisher support programmes and also provide digital literacy programmes.
X is the only company that did not reply to the commission before the release of the final report. It has been imposed with remedial action that includes offering all X monetisation programmes in South Africa.
Hodge said the commission is comfortable that X will comply with the proposed remedial action. “They haven’t agreed prior to the launch in terms of the way forward. We remain open to settling this. They have 20 days to lodge an appeal if they wish to appeal. But we have seen that some respondents in an inquiry accept the outcome, even if they haven’t communicated agreement upfront.”
The inquiry has also demanded action from government to help protect the local news industry.
Recommendations include trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau providing a block exemption to the media for collective bargaining over the terms and conditions of monetisation programmes offered by digital platforms, including search, social media and AI chatbots.
It has also suggested the joint selling of content to digital platforms, including AI content licensing.
Tau said the report will be given priority and that he plans to discuss the recommendations with communications minister Solly Malatsi.
“I commend these platforms that have agreed to these remedies for their constructive engagement with the inquiry and their commitment to supporting the media news in South Africa,” he said.
‘Landmark step’
The final report is a culmination of 24 months of evidence gathering and five rounds of information requests, hearings, consultations with industry stakeholders. The commission released it after two months of negotiations with the global platforms and stakeholders.
Read: Google rejects claims it exploits South African news media
“The final report and these remedies represent a landmark step towards rebalancing digital markets, protecting fair competition and rebuilding the long-term sustainability of South Africa’s news media,” said Hodge. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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