News Corp. works with Facebook on 'subscription mechanic'

Dive Brief:

Speaking at an industry conference in Italy this week, News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson said his company is in "very advanced" talks with Facebook about a "subscription mechanic" for publishers run through the social media platform, according to Bloomberg. News Corp. is the publisher of titles such as The Wall Street Journal and the Times of London.
Thomson previously pushed against the walled gardens of Google and Facebook at the conference, particularly singling out Google as a key offender, Bloomberg said. Later, he said he had exchanged thoughts with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the importance of recognizing the value of content, and stated there needs to be "a fundamental change in the outlook to how we value content and the value of content."
Exactly what a subscription mechanic would entail on Facebook isn't entirely clear, but, at a separate conference last week in London, Thomson said it might involve bundling subscriptions around specific topics like sports or business.

Dive Insight:

Publishers would likely welcome some sort of subscription model to provide a new revenue stream on Facebook, a platform they've long expressed frustration with amid myriad algorithm changes that affect content visibility in News Feed and also metrics failings on Facebook's part.

Between Google and Facebook commanding the vast majority of the digital media space, publishers often don't have too much leverage to guide industry conversation, but appear to be more often eyeing paid digital subscriptions as other revenues flag thanks to technology like ad blockers.

Integrating that type of content model into Facebook would provide massive scale and visibility. However, in terms of actually monetizing publisher content, Facebook does not have the best track record.

With mobile, in particular — an ever-more valuable channel for publishers — Facebook's Instant Articles product has proved disappointing for many in the industry, especially when compared to Google's similar Accelerated Mobile Pages, which open up more control by being open-source.