Friday 24th May: OpenAI, WSJ owner News Corp strike content deal valued at over $250 million

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I’ve seen an awful lot of commentary on this one. It’s understandable, given the size of the organisations involved in the deal, and the fact that it might well set an example for any future deals between media businesses and AI companies. While the specific terms of the deal aren’t public, it is expected to equate to around $250 million over five years.

News Corp chief exec Robert Thomson said: “The digital age has been characterized by the dominance of distributors, often at the expense of creators, and many media companies have been swept away by a remorseless technological tide. The onus is now on us to make the most of this providential opportunity.” That’s quite a momentous and dramatic tone to take!

But given how early into the age of AI companies compensating publishers we are, there’s been chatter about whether this under- or overvalues the News Corp assets being used. Media acadmeic Emily Bell says: “$50m a year from OpenAI to News Corp is… either much too little for complete access to a unique set of assets, or… a lucky pile of lobby cash scored before it all goes pear shaped.”

I’m writing an article at the moment on the best and worst use cases for GenAI in a publishers’ content strategy (who isn’t). You’d have to say that using an AI-generated interview with a reclusive celebrity and splashing it on the front page is probably up there with the worst use cases of it. But hey, maybe it’s good we got it out of the way early so there’s precedent for how ridiculously stupid it is.

Lots to talk about when it comes to Will Lewis’s early tenure at the Washington Post — not least the fact he’s already been implicated in downplaying his involvement in the phone hacking scandal. But, with an acknowledgment to staff that the paper is “in a hole” and has lost 50% of its audience since 2020, that’s fair, fair easier said than done.

There’s a pretty terrifying stat in here that digital publishers might lose 20-40% of their traffic when Google’s AI products are fully implemented. But, as the author Delano R. Massey of Axios Local makes clear, this is evolution at work, and those publications that specialise on serving diverse audiences: “That’s why so many niche and local publishers have cropped up; to fill a void that was created by arrogance, neglect and an unwillingness to change – a poisonous recipe”.

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