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MEDIA

Social Democrats to buy newspaper

The Social Democrats plan to buy the majority stake in the most-read Swedish regional newspaper north of Uppsala, Norrländska Socialdemokraten (NSD).

Published: 26 July 2006 09:57 CEST

The move comes after the paper’s current owner, Norwegian company Orkla, announced it was selling its media arm to British investment company Mecom. This means that Mecom would own 49 percent of the paper.

NSD’s chairman K-G Holmqvist said that the sale of Orkla was expected. He added the most probable outcome was that the paper’s minority shareholders Valrossen (representing the local Social Democratic Party) and fellow local paper Piteå Tidningen would use their rights to buy up Orkla’s stake.

This would give the Social Democrats control of the paper, although the move is unlikely to have a major effect on its editorial line: as its name suggests, the paper is already a staunch supporter of Sweden’s ruling party.

BUSINESS

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat

Google announced Wednesday the reopening of its news service in Spain next year after the country amended a law that imposed fees on aggregators such as the US tech giant for using publishers’ content.

Published: 4 November 2021 10:15 CET
Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat
Google argues its news site drives readers to Spanish newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue.Photo: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

The service closed in Spain in December 2014 after legislation passed requiring web platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay publishers to reproduce content from other websites, including links to their articles that describe a story’s content.

But on Tuesday the Spanish government approved a European Union copyright law that allows third-party online news platforms to negotiate directly with content providers regarding fees.

This means Google no longer has to pay a fee to Spain’s entire media industry and can instead negotiate fees with individual publishers.

Writing in a company blog post on Wednesday, Google Spain country manager Fuencisla Clemares welcomed the government move and announced that as a result “Google News will soon be available once again in Spain”.

“The new copyright law allows Spanish media outlets — big and small — to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to make money with that content,” she added.

“Over the coming months, we will be working with publishers to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.”

News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at the failure of Google particularly to pay them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news stories.

Google argues its news site drives readers to newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue and find new subscribers.

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