Google’s South Africa Media Deal Pays Far Less Than First Asked

South Africa’s Competition Commission closed its two-year media inquiry on 13 November 2025 with a R688 million Google package, far below the annual cheque it had floated in February. News still makes up 5% to 10% of Google search queries in the country, the commission said, and Google still does not pay for the copy it shows or summarises.

In February 2025 the inquiry told Google to pay local newsrooms R300 million to R500 million a year for three to five years. The final deal spreads about $40 million across five years and drops the digital levy inquiry chair James Hodge had called the only alternative if talks failed.

How Much Did the Commission Originally Want From Google?

The February provisional report priced a cash transfer of R300 million to R500 million a year, for three to five years, while Google put in place search changes that would send more clicks to South African sites. Panel member Paula Fray described “a massive decline in traditional advertising revenue,” with print titles down around 40% and SABC ad income 47% off its peak.

The final report used a narrower harm figure as the guide for talks. It put the extra value Google Search took from publishers, or destroyed through zero-click results, in a range of R200 million to R300 million for 2023. That is a different quantity from the February payment demand, and it is the number the inquiry says it carried into the room.

THE INQUIRY CLOCK

1. 17 October 2023: The Competition Commission opens the Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry.
2. February 2025: The provisional report sets the annual Google payment range and a levy fallback.
3. 7 April 2025: Public comment on that report closes.
4. 13 November 2025: The final report lands, with Google and YouTube on a five-year package.

Hodge, who chaired the inquiry, had said that if platforms would not comply, the only other path was a 5% to 10% digital levy on search, social media and AI firms. The provisional remedies published in February 2025 also told Meta to restore news referral traffic by 100% and told YouTube to lift the publisher revenue share to 70%.

Google Closed the Inquiry for R688 Million Over Five Years

After two months of talks, most of the large platforms accepted remedies the commission said would start as soon as the report launched. The centrepiece is a R688 million Media Support Package with Google and YouTube, about $40 million, spread over five years for national, community and vernacular titles.

Michael Markovitz, director of the Media Leadership Think Tank at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science, set out the Google money in an assessment for the South African National Editors’ Forum. The R71 million a year Showcase line is the largest named stream. The Digital News Transformation Fund’s first three years already pledged from November 2024 sit inside the same envelope, so part of the headline figure is not new cash.

THE GOOGLE MONEY, LINE BY LINE

Google will also add tools so users can pick local news as a preferred source, help sites with Core Web Vitals, share richer audience data, and set up an African News Innovation Forum. An Offerwall toolkit is meant to make micropayments easier. The cash and the product work arrive together.

The Final Report and these remedies represent a landmark step toward rebalancing digital markets, protecting fair competition, and rebuilding the long-term sustainability of South Africa’s news media.

James Hodge, MDPMI Chair, Competition Commission statement, 13 November 2025

Google’s own line was cooler. Helping news adapt “is a shared responsibility,” the company said, and it “requires innovation from publishers, a broad-based approach from the wider industry and government, and contributions from multiple platforms, not just Google.” Commissioner Doris Tshepe thanked those who accepted remedies and called the package “a lifeline for the media sector.”

Showcase Cheques and the SABC’s Seat at the Table

Google News Showcase is a licensing product. The R71 million a year is the closest thing in the package to a content fee, and it is aimed at national publishers and the public broadcaster. Eligibility for Showcase, and for several of the training and monetisation tools, is tied to membership of the Press Council or the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa.

The SABC had sat outside the original terms of reference. It is now inside Showcase, and YouTube must give it Partner Sales support, skills and onboarding within six months, for three years, so the broadcaster can sell ads directly on its own channels. The report also backs digitising the SABC archive. Markovitz noted that the archive plan is thin on intellectual-property detail, which is a live risk if public recordings move onto a private stack.

Microsoft’s part is smaller and clearer. It will add five more national publishers to its MSN news contracts. Meta will open a media liaison office in South Africa, run workshops, issue ad credits and drop follower thresholds that had kept smaller titles out of monetisation. TikTok will bring its Publisher Support Suite. Those are distribution and sales tools, not a second R688 million.

Where the Community Grant Money Is Going

Community and independent titles were the group the inquiry said Google’s ranking under-served, especially vernacular outlets. Their named cash is the Digital News Transformation Fund, a Google partnership with the Association of Independent Publishers, run by Tshikululu Social Investments. Google and the AIP do not sit on the funding decisions.

The money is moving. On 26 June 2026 the fund approved R15.8 million for 22 independent publishers in its second round, taking the two-round total to 43 projects across seven provinces. Titles in the round publish in at least nine South African languages, including Sepedi, Xitsonga, Setswana, isiXhosa and Sesotho. Press Council membership in good standing is required to apply.

DNTF ROUND 2, IN BRIEF

• The cheque: R15.8 million in project grants, approved 26 June 2026.
• The spread: 22 publishers in seven provinces, with three national projects, on top of a two-round total of 43.
• The work: Mobile-first sites, WhatsApp distribution, municipal data desks and vernacular titles, with some newsrooms now using AI inside stated editorial rules.
• The gate: Press Council membership is required, and neither Google nor the AIP picks the winners.

Makhosazana Zwane-Siguqa, a member of the fund’s adjudication committee, said the second-round bids were no longer “applications for basic websites or podcast studios” and that teams were building for mobile, WhatsApp and short video. A third round opened on 3 August 2026. That is real money in small newsrooms. It is still a grant window, not a traffic right, and it is still Google-funded.

The Algorithm Fixes Left on the Table

The February text tried to rewrite how platforms rank and pay for news. The November text largely does not. Ordering Meta or X to stop burying news links would have meant standing over a global ranking system, and the commission did not take that case to a fight it expected to lose in court.

REMEDIES THAT DID NOT MAKE THE FINAL REPORT

• The annual cheque: R300 million to R500 million a year for three to five years is gone, replaced by R688 million over five years.
• The levy: A 5% to 10% charge on search, social and AI firms if talks failed is absent from the final report.
• YouTube’s split: A 70% revenue share for news and broadcasters became automatic Partner Programme access, plus SABC sales help, with no 70% figure attached.
• Meta’s traffic order: The 100% restoration of news referrals, and the ban on deprioritising news links, were not imposed.
• A single media fund: The idea of one national pot was dropped for parallel Google, DNTF, MDDA and proposed SANEF funds.

X did not join the final talks. The commission imposed remedies anyway, including a duty to offer all of its monetisation programmes in South Africa, and gave the company 20 days to appeal. Platforms that did sign must file annual compliance affidavits. Changing or dropping a remedy needs 20 days’ written notice, and a breach can go to the Competition Tribunal.

AI was treated as a controls problem, not a licensing market. Google, OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and X must give South African publishers the same opt-outs available in the EU, plus training on how to use them. There is no pay-for-training rule. The Media Leadership Think Tank’s Protocol Gap study of 263 South African news sites found that by April 2026 only 30.4% blocked at least one AI crawler, barely up from 29.7% in December 2025, even though 74.1% of the sites had a robots.txt file. The legal right the inquiry won is sitting unused on most homepages.

That unused switch is why the Google money has a second edge. Showcase, Core Web Vitals support and the Offerwall toolkit put the new cash inside Google’s own stack. A payer that also owns the pipe will set the terms of the next round, whether or not anyone writes that down in a remedy order.

Australia Wrote a Levy After South Africa Walked Away

Markovitz’s SANEF assessment is blunt on the missing tax. The final report does not mention the 5% to 10% levy. He points to Trump-era executive orders that threatened retaliation against countries that tax digital firms, plus Treasury and drafting hurdles at home, as the politics that made a levy hard to land.

Australia went the other way. In August 2026 its parliament passed a news bargaining levy on large search and social platforms, built so that paying publishers is cheaper than writing a cheque to the state, after the 2021 bargaining code let firms walk away from news. South Africa chose a negotiated package that started at once, rather than a statute that would have taken years and a fight with Washington.

The inquiry still asks the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition for a block exemption so publishers can bargain as a group on platform terms, AI licences, ad-tech prices and joint sales for community titles. That exemption is a recommendation, not a signed rule. Until it exists, the bargaining gap the report described is still the bargaining gap.

Independent titles are drawing DNTF grants, national newsrooms have a Showcase line, and the SABC has a YouTube sales path it did not have in 2024. Google avoided a levy, kept its ranking system, and can describe the outlay as support rather than a fine. The February demand priced a yearly transfer. The November close priced a five-year package, and the ranking orders never left the draft.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did the Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry Begin?

The Competition Commission formally opened the inquiry on 17 October 2023 under section 43B(1)(a) of the Competition Act. The final statement says the work ran 24 months and included five rounds of information requests, public and in-camera hearings, expert papers, a consumer survey and a focus group before the November 2025 report.

Who Runs the Digital News Transformation Fund?

Tshikululu Social Investments administers the fund. Google supplies the money and the Association of Independent Publishers is the industry partner, but neither Google nor the AIP sits on funding decisions, which go through an independent adjudication committee and an oversight board. A dedicated grants system was still being built after a May 2026 internal audit by RSM SA of the first round.

What Happens If Google or Another Platform Misses a Remedy?

Each platform under a remedy must file an annual compliance affidavit and report on rollout, publisher onboarding, training, monetisation tools and AI controls. It must give 20 days’ written notice before it varies or stops a remedy. Persistent failure can be sent to the Competition Tribunal, which can issue orders and penalties.

Do AI Companies Have to Pay South African Publishers for Training Data?

No. The inquiry requires EU-style opt-outs and training on how to block crawlers and summaries, and it asks for a block exemption so publishers can bargain as a group, but it does not set a licence fee or a tariff for training data. Any paid AI market would need later legislation or a commercial deal.