Google warns SA media revenue fight will hurt investment

7 Apr 2025

Google responded to the Competition Commission’s Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry by saying it ‘misses the point’.

Charles Murito, Google’s regional director for government affairs and public policy in sub-Saharan Africa, recently argued in a strongly worded op-ed that the Competition Commission’s approach “seeks to resurrect outdated business models” and fails to recognise how consumer behaviour has fundamentally changed.

Consumer choice

“The way people interact with news has changed dramatically. We search, stream and scroll across multiple sites, platforms and screens to understand what’s going on in our communities and around the world,” he wrote.

The tech giant warns that implementing the commission’s recommendations would have serious negative consequences for South Africa’s digital ecosystem, including “less choice for consumers” by limiting diversity of sources if Google was forced to give algorithmic preference to certain content.

“Forcing Google to give algorithmic preference to local news will limit diversity of sources and perspectives, imposing on people what to read and watch. This is also contrary to South Africans’ fundamental rights to free expression and diversity of views,” Murito said.

Google portrays itself as “one of the world’s biggest supporters of journalism”, citing a decade of partnerships with South African publishers.

The background

Here’s something to ponder: Google extracted R11-billion from the R14.5-billion South African digital advertising market in 2022. It gets wilder when you add Meta to the equation, with the pair feasting on 97% of that market and leaving local media with only R500-million to distribute among themselves.

The Competition Commission’s provisional Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry (MDPMI) report estimated that Google’s monopoly position and unequal bargaining power resulted in an additional value extraction from publishers of between R300-million and R500-million annually – money that could otherwise support newsrooms and journalism in South Africa.

For traditional media companies, the impact has been devastating. Media24 reported that newspaper advertising and circulation revenue more than halved (falling by 52%) over a seven-year period.

Read more: Doors to close on Media24 print titles — 800 jobs affected

While not exclusively Google’s fault, this decline coincides with Big Tech’s growing dominance of advertising markets.

Controlled demolition

To understand Google’s dominant position, you need to look at how the tech giant strides the advertising technology ecosystem.

“There’s no one component of the ad tech stack that Google doesn’t have a presence in,” was the inquiry’s finding during hearings. Google controls publisher ad servers (Google Ad Manager), sell-side platforms (Google AdX), and demand-side platforms (Google Ads and DV360), effectively playing on all sides of the advertising marketplace.

The Competition Commission’s provisional report estimates Google’s market share in South African adtech at between 80-90%, with Google adtech services generating between R1-billion and R2-billion in 2022, while all other adtech service providers combined accounted for between just R200-million and R300-million.

This dominance creates what publishers describe as a practical necessity to use Google’s platforms. As News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson testified: “Google just has much more scale and that’s the reason, so there’s much more availability if you’re using Google.”

All money, no clicks

Another significant issue highlighted by the inquiry is “zero-click searches” – instances where Google displays news content directly in search results, eliminating the need for users to click through to publishers’ websites.

The inquiry estimated that if news-related queries resulted in clicks to news sites (excluding refinements), South African media could have received an additional 130%-140% in referral traffic – traffic that could potentially be monetised through advertising or subscriptions.

The current trend of AI-generated summaries in place of search results will only compound the zero-click problem, as will products like ChatGPT’s search engine SearchGPT.

Commercial intent

Google has, of course, defended its position, arguing that it provides significant value to news publishers through referral traffic.

In its submissions, the search giant stated that in 2023 it earned less than R19-million from ads displayed next to news queries in SA, while generating an estimated R350-million in referral traffic value for local publishers in the same period.

“Financially, it is not the primary driver of financial value to Google... There are not really ads on news seeking queries. We monetise based on commercial user intents,” said Erin Simon from Google’s News/Search division.

The tech giant further argues that its platforms provide tools that enable publishers to monetise their content and reach wider audiences, positioning itself as a partner rather than a competitor to news organisations.

Google's case for adding value

Google is accused of unfairly taking money off the table for South African media, but the search giant says it is doing the opposite and adding value to the media market:

Google Search, News and Discover sent 545 million clicks to South African news publishers in 2023, creating an estimated R350-million in referral traffic value.

Its AdTech tools help publishers monetise content, and the company has launched training programmes that have reached more than 1,500 journalists and publishers in South Africa over the past decade.

Recent investments such as the R114-million Digital News Transformation Fund have been launched in partnership with the Association of Independent Publishers.

Why you should care

If you get your news online — whether through Google, social media, or websites — this fight affects how you find news, what kind of news you see, and who gets paid for it.

If local media can’t survive, you'll see fewer reliable South African news sources, less investigative journalism, and fewer voices representing your community.

If Google’s services are restricted too much, your user experience could change — possibly fewer features, slower innovation, or less relevant results.

Local problems and homegrown solutions

The Competition Commission found that Google AdTech’s limited support for South African languages has created a gap in the market, though a local startup is attempting to address this.

One proposed remedy suggests Google should “permit ads in vernacular SA languages by either investing in the language capabilities or adjusting its policies on ad reviews”.

The commission also suggested splitting Google’s various AdTech businesses, reducing fees for programmatically serving direct advertising, and creating policies to ensure more equitable value sharing between platforms and publishers.

Google, however, warns that such interventions could “restrict access to information, stifle innovation, and disrupt monetisation and future investment” in South Africa.

The company specifically warns that proposed changes to AI products “would break innovative features like AI Overviews and Gemini” and “could create conditions detrimental to future investment and innovation in the market.” DM

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