Latest / Best of Business / Andrew Holden: News Publishers' Association Public Affairs Director explains the impact of tech companies backing away from New Zealand media

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Andrew Holden: News Publishers' Association Public Affairs Director explains the impact of tech companies backing away from New Zealand media · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks be follow
• 0:12
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  Speaker 2: Now, the Broadcasting Minister says Facebook may actually well end
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  Speaker 2: up banning New Zealand news content from its sites site
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  Speaker 2: in retaliation against a proposed fair bargaining bill. Once past,
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  Speaker 2: the likes of Google and Facebook will be forced to
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  Speaker 2: negotiate deals with media companies in order to use their content.
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  Speaker 2: So why I asked Paul Goldsmith, the Minister, earlier, whether
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  Speaker 2: the tech companies had threatened to ban news in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 3: No, they werenderdy threats. But if I've made it clear
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  Speaker 3: that not very keen honest legislation, as has Google, Google
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  Speaker 3: and so you know, it's a it is quite a
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  Speaker 3: tricky area, but we think combalances with having this as
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  Speaker 3: a backstop just to encourage those conversations to happen.
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  Speaker 2: Andrew Holden is the News Publishers Association's Public Affairs director
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  Speaker 2: and with us now, Hey, Andrew, Hi, how do you
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  Speaker 2: rate the chances that Facebook will ban news here?
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  Speaker 4: Ah, It's a difficult to say at this point. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: we've certainly done or threatened that in Australia and I've
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  Speaker 4: done it in Canada. I mean, I think the point
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  Speaker 4: about this legislation is it gives us an opportunity to
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  Speaker 4: sit down with them and have a conversation and a negotiation.
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  Speaker 4: There's no need from our perspective to go to that
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  Speaker 4: kind of nuclear response at this point. We think that
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  Speaker 4: news brings venue to Facebook. We just want to have
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  Speaker 4: a conversation with them about it.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, that may be what I mean. You might want
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  Speaker 2: to be reasonable, but they're not that reasonable. If we
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  Speaker 2: end up in the same situation that is possible in Australia,
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  Speaker 2: certainly has happened in Canada where you've got this, you know,
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  Speaker 2: them pulling out of the news and there as therefore
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  Speaker 2: as a result, reduced traffic and it particularly hits the
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  Speaker 2: smaller publishers hard. Is it worth it to end up
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  Speaker 2: in that position for what little money we will get
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  Speaker 2: from Google?
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  Speaker 4: Well, are you talking about little money from Google and
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  Speaker 4: little money from Facebook? I mean, between the two of
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  Speaker 4: them and no money from.
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  Speaker 2: Facebook Andrew they walk away, they really hurt the traffic
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  Speaker 2: that goes through to the websites. You're getting some from Google,
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  Speaker 2: but you lose Facebook and all of their platform altogether.
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  Speaker 2: Is it worth it.
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  Speaker 4: Well, we lose the platform potentially for news, but you know,
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  Speaker 4: there are always alternatives for small publishers, and certainly the
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  Speaker 4: MPa is one of those who are more than happy
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  Speaker 4: to talk to those small community or ethnic publishers around
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  Speaker 4: what might be alternatives for them. I mean, fundamentally, what
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  Speaker 4: we're talking about here, though, is what is a fair
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  Speaker 4: payment for the use of journalism content by these tech
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  Speaker 4: companies And and we know they're using it. We've done
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  Speaker 4: research recently that shows them more than ninety percent of
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  Speaker 4: key wes are going to who want to keep up
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  Speaker 4: to date with news every single day, and search and
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  Speaker 4: social media are a key places that they go do
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  Speaker 4: to find that information. So we know news is of
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  Speaker 4: value to them. And what we want to do is
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  Speaker 4: sit down with these companies and say journalism matters of
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  Speaker 4: New zealand you're getting value out of it, what do
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  Speaker 4: you think is a fair payment to us. That's fundamentally
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  Speaker 4: the point behind it.
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  Speaker 2: I would have thought that news media had a better
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  Speaker 2: argument with the likes of Facebook and Google using AI
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  Speaker 2: because there is no I mean, you know, there is
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  Speaker 2: some benefit in news media being on a platform like
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  Speaker 2: Google because you get the text traffic. You get the
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  Speaker 2: traffic coming through, you also get you there's some benefit
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  Speaker 2: of being on a platform like Facebook because you get
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  Speaker 2: the traffic coming through, But there is absolutely no benefit
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  Speaker 2: to news media and those guys scraping their content for AI.
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  Speaker 2: Are you disappointed that Paul Goldsmith's not doing anything about
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  Speaker 2: the AI.
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  Speaker 4: No. I mean, we certainly asked him to suggest that
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  Speaker 4: a legislation call it out, But we're confident that this legislation,
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  Speaker 4: because it doesn't specify the particular companies that are covered
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  Speaker 4: by it, that it will in fact to cover those AIS.
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  Speaker 4: So Chat GPT, as far as we're concerned, will be
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  Speaker 4: covered by this legislation. We know that they're using new
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  Speaker 4: zum on journalism, they're using it to train their engines.
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  Speaker 4: So we're looking forward to sitting down and having a
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  Speaker 4: conversation with them and saying, we know you're getting venue
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  Speaker 4: out of this, it's time for you to pay for
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  Speaker 4: the venue that you're getting from it.
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  Speaker 2: Does David Seymour have a point that it doesn't. This
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  Speaker 2: doesn't actually fundamentally deal with the problem, which is that
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  Speaker 2: the new news media is offering up a product we
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  Speaker 2: no longer want to consume.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I mean he's wrong on that respect. I mean
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  Speaker 4: he's talking about something completely different. The issue here is
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  Speaker 4: that the money is being the digital advertising is being
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  Speaker 4: scooped up by these digital tech companies. They're getting venue
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  Speaker 4: from news and they're not paying for it. What he's
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  Speaker 4: talking about is something fundamentally different. We don't have an
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  Speaker 4: issue with the audience in New Zealand. As I said
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  Speaker 4: that research is showing that ninety percent of kiwis are
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  Speaker 4: going and looking for information every day. The same research
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  Speaker 4: shows that they trust their local news content providers. Here
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  Speaker 4: in this country, over eighty percent of kiwi's actually trust
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  Speaker 4: the local journalists who tell them what's happening if there's
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  Speaker 4: flooding in Lisbon or on earth quaic in christ Church.
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  Speaker 4: So that's not the issue here. The issue is a
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  Speaker 4: marketing balance. It's not the quality of the news and
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  Speaker 4: it's not the fact that the keyways want to be
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  Speaker 4: kept up today.
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  Speaker 2: Andrew, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you
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  Speaker 2: so much for your time. That's Andrew Holden Holden who's
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  Speaker 2: the Public of Fees Director at the News Publishers Associational.
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