What South Africa’s Big Tech Deal Means for UK News Publishers

More developments are emerging in South Africa over the country's news publishers negotiations with tech platforms, in comparable discussions that lie ahead for UK publishers later this year.

As Mark Markovitz writes in Tech Policy Press, South Africa’s Competition Commission has just closed a landmark, two-year inquiry with a set of pragmatic but limited concessions from global tech platforms - including a structured R688 million (£32m) support package from Google and YouTube for local publishers, alongside negotiated improvements in monetisation tools and analytics access for media outlets.

While these outcomes offer tangible short-term relief for South African news organisations, the inquiry stopped short of addressing deeper structural issues in ad tech, algorithmic power and AI-driven content economics that continue to skew bargaining power toward platforms and away from journalism.  

For journalists tracking platform accountability and media sustainability, South Africa’s experience offers instructive lessons: the value of enforceable remedies, the limits of national regulation against global tech design, and the strategic role of collective bargaining mechanisms.

These are precisely the dynamics the Independent Media Association (IMA) will be engaging with in its upcoming negotiations with Google in the UK this year.

"The centerpiece of the final report is a structured settlement with Google, worth R688 million (about US$40 million), over five years. Although negotiated, it is fully enforceable. The settlement includes R38 million per year for three years for the Digital News Transformation Fund (DNTF) for small and community media, funding already committed last year and not new money, with a further R19 million per year for two years in matching grants tied to the same mechanism.

It also includes R71 million per year for five years for Google News Showcase for national publishers and the SABC, R45 million per year for three years for an AI Innovation Fund for mainstream media, and R11.6 million over three years for industry-wide training, including vernacular-language support with the Media Development and Diversity Agency. These commitments are backed by compliance affidavits and the possibility of escalation to the Competition Tribunal for any breach."

Read the piece in full here.