…But whereas tech companies like Google and Meta have sought to narrow the discussion to focus on click-through rates and the value of the traffic they provide to publishers, their approach disregards the ways that journalism improves their platforms for all users, even if they don’t click on a headline.
Now, a new study finds that the value of news is far higher than policymakers and publishers think it is, at least on Google search, which accounts for the majority of Google’s US$280 billion (C$379 billion) in annual revenue.
The study, conducted by FehrAdvice and Partners AG on behalf of the Swiss Media publishers’ association with oversight from leading academics, assessed the value of journalistic content on the Google search engine in Switzerland and its impact on user behaviour and satisfaction. It concluded that the market share of Google searches that use media content results in an estimated revenue of about US$440 million per year in Switzerland.
The study suggests that if Google did not have a dominant monopoly positionin web search and faced serious competition, fair compensation for the value that media content provides Google would amount to about 40 per cent of its total revenue, or approximately US$175 million per year in Switzerland alone.
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