OpenAI won't pay publishers in SearchGPT | Top 50 news sites in US in September
And we hear from The Independent as it notches large US traffic increases in September
Hello and happy Friday.
OpenAI’s head of media partnerships made an appearance - virtually - before a room of news industry professionals in Brussels on Tuesday where he gave his best assurances that the generative AI business hoped to be a partner, not a threat, to journalism.
I’m sure several publishers will cautiously welcome Varun Shetty’s off-hand comment that “no one wants to read AI-generated news” - it’s certainly the chunk of our article people have been quoting the most.
But when it comes down to the concrete stuff he didn’t have a lot of certainty to offer: unlike Perplexity and Microsoft, OpenAI has no plans at present to share ad revenue with the publishers whose content it relies on for its search engine SearchGPT. Instead, Shetty said, the company believes it can compensate publishers fairly with “significant incremental traffic”.
But will a few stray click-throughs make up for loss of traffic as search engines begin answering user queries without any need for links? To many in the news industry, it sounds a lot like OpenAI is promising exposure in lieu of cash.
Meanwhile this week we have our updated ranking of the top 50 news sites in the US for September, which shows a continued pullback from July’s traffic heights. It’s not all bad news: as in August, traffic remains up year-on-year for most publishers, and a few specific brands are having a particularly good time. Forbes, for example, has just broken into the top ten for the first time.
Another publisher that’s seen success recently in the US charts is The Independent, which was one of only four sites in the top 50 to see month-on-month visitor growth in September, capping off 88.3% year-on-year growth.
It so happens that parent company Independent Digital News and Media published its most recent accounts earlier this week, allowing Charlotte Tobitt to speak with its chief executive and chairman about The Independent’s US operations which they say are now contributing 23% of total revenues.
Have a great weekend.
Bron
OpenAI exec rules out sharing revenue from SearchGPT with publishers, for now
“This will be something that we’re thinking a lot about, but I think we’re going to start with this proposition of traffic.”
The Independent set to double profit and revenue over last five years
Chief executive Christian Broughton described this as "a really exciting moment, because it shows us that as America goes to the polls and as America seeks trusted journalism it's coming to The Independent".
Top 50 news websites in the US: All but four sites saw traffic fall in September
All of the ten most-visited news sites in the US saw traffic drop month-on-month.
Also on Press Gazette:
Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Hearst agrees content deal with OpenAI
Guardian launches product recommendations earning commission on sales
Missing links: Upmarket UK newsbrands deny click-throughs to story sources
Former Observer editors voice ‘profound concern’ over proposed sale of title
Because we’re worth it: Why FT, Politico and Racing Post charge big for online news
And elsewhere…
El País sweetens subscription offering with full access to The New York Times
El Pais via Nieman Lab
Fox News to debut Spanish-language show and website ahead of the election
Sara Fischer, Axios
No time to read? Google’s new AI will turn anything into a podcast
Geoffrey A Fowler, The Washington Post
The race to block OpenAI’s scraping bots is slowing down
Kate Knibbs, Wired
How The New York Times incorporates editorial judgment in algorithms to curate its home page
Zhen Yang, Nieman Lab
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