aceAI systems using Australian news publisher content and the resulting compensation and revenue outcomes for publishers like Nine
Source article: Nine urges Albanese to force tech companies to compensate media in face of AI threat
Abstract: The head of Nine Entertainment has called on the prime minister to prioritise a policy to force global platforms to compensate local media as artificial intelligence-fuelled big tech disrupts the revenue models of publishers around the world. Nine’s chief executive officer, Matt Stanton, said while presenting the company’s half year financial results on Tuesday that the government’s long-awaited news bargaining incentive was at risk of further delay. “This policy is not just of great importance to Nine and the j…
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On 24 February 2026, Nine Entertainment CEO Matt Stanton used the company's half-year results to urge Prime Minister Albanese to prioritize the news bargaining incentive, a policy that would impose a charge on qualifying tech firms including Meta, Google and ByteDance unless they strike payment deals with local publishers. The push comes as many deals under the original voluntary code have expired and as AI-driven zero-click searches grow.
The case matters because it links AI search and model behavior directly to the financial viability of journalism and to democratic health, with Nine reporting falling broadcast revenue while simultaneously monetizing its archive through new LLM training licenses. What remains uncertain is whether the incentive will be implemented before late 2026 given delays tied to Australia-US trade negotiations and how effective licensing will be against ongoing traffic loss from AI answers.
- Nine CEO Matt Stanton called on the prime minister to prioritize the news bargaining incentive to force platforms including Meta, Google and ByteDance to compensate local media.
- The proposed incentive would impose a government charge on qualifying tech companies that can be offset when they strike deals with publishers.
- Nine reported a 4% fall in half-year revenue to $1.06bn and cited AI-driven zero-click searches as heightening power imbalance concerns.
Nine Entertainment secured paid licensing deals allowing domestic corporates to use its content to train in-house large language models.
AI-powered search engines and models are delivering answers directly to users through zero-click searches, reducing traffic to news sites and disrupting publisher revenue models in Australia.
The rundown
The article describes the proposed news bargaining incentive as an addition to the original voluntary news bargaining code, designed to address power imbalance between search or social media giants and publishers when negotiating payment for displaying news content.
Nine's half-year results to $1.06bn revenue with broadcast arm declines and $192.2m earnings boosted by cost-cutting were presented alongside the policy push, with Stanton noting both efficiencies and disruption from AI and a pipeline of local and global LLM opportunities.
The source notes implementation uncertainty and external dependencies, including that the policy has been delayed amid wider trade negotiations between Australia and the US, complicated by Donald Trump's tariff regime, and that many deals under the original voluntary code have expired.
Sources
- JournalismThe Guardian2026-02-24
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