Facebook and Google application logos displayed on a tablet.
Denis Charlet | AFP through Getty Images
LONDON – Facebook has announced that it will launch its Facebook News product in the UK on Tuesday and will pay publishers for their content.
Facebook News is a dedicated section of the Facebook application that contains clean and personalized news from hundreds of national, local and life publications.
The product, which competes with Apple News, was launched in the US in June last year, and the United Kingdom is the second country to have access to it.
Facebook claims that the product provides users with “informative, reliable and relevant news”, while highlighting original and authoritative reports on pressing topics.
Jesper Doub, European director of Facebook news partnerships, said in a blog post on Tuesday: “This is the beginning of a series of international investments in news.”
He added: “The product is a multi-year investment that puts original journalism in front of new audiences, as well as giving publishers more advertising and subscription opportunities to build sustainable businesses for the future.”
Facebook announced the launch of Facebook News in the UK in November, saying it will include content from media partners, including Conde Nast, Hearst, The Economist and Guardian Media Group.
On Tuesday, Facebook said it had now subscribed to Channel 4 News, Daily Mail Group, DC Thomson, Financial Times, Sky News and Telegraph Media Group.
Some content that is normally behind a payment screen can be viewed for free on Facebook News, which is expected to be released in several countries this year.
“We will continue to learn, listen and improve Facebook News as it launches in the UK and other markets, including France and Germany, where we are in active negotiations with partners,” Doub said.
Technology giants like Facebook and Google are under increasing pressure to pay media companies for their content.
A Facebook spokesman told CNBC that the company would pay for certain UK publications to feature in Facebook News, but could not reveal how much.
“We will pay some publishers to participate in Facebook News,” he said. “We pay for content that isn’t already on the platform to achieve a diverse set of coverage in a wide range of areas.”
He added: “Generating money for most publishers appearing in Facebook News will be similar to generating money through other Facebook tabs, from referral traffic to your sites or Instant Articles ads, pushing people to hit a payment screen ”.
Google’s battle
Last week, Google signed an agreement to pay publishing companies and French news agencies for their content.
The agreement comes after several months of talks between Google France and media groups, which are represented by the French lobby Alliance de la Presse d’Information Generale.
Google has said it will negotiate individual licenses with alliance members covering related rights and opening access to a new mobile service from the company called News Showcase.
The search giant said last year that it would pay news publishers for the first time for a change in approach to the internet giant, which has refused to do so for years. The company has agreed to a number of initial transactions in Germany, Australia and Brazil, and now seems to be expanding this in France as well.
But when the Australian government proposed a new law that would force Google and Facebook to pay news publishers the right to connect to their content, Google threatened to remove its widely used search engine from the country.
“Along with the difficult-to-manage financial and operational risk if this version of the Code became law, it would give us no choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia,” said Mel Silva, CEO of Google Australia and New Zealand, a senate committee said last week.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told a news conference that “we are not responding to threats”.
– Additional reporting by CNBC’s Ryan Browne.