R688MILLION FUNDING ONLINE MEDIA IN SOUTH AFRICA
MEDIA AND DIGITAL PLATFORMS MARKET INQUIRY RELEASES FINAL REPORT
43B(1)(a) of the
Competition Act, released its Final Report. The final report is a culmination of 24 months of extensive evidence gathering, five rounds of information requests, public and in-camera hearings, expert submissions, consultations with industry stakeholders, a consumer survey, a focus group, and a
provisional report process that enabled broader public input from media publishers, broadcasters, the digital platforms themselves, and academia.
The final report underscores how news media is essential for democracy, serving as the cornerstone of public accountability and informed citizens. Yet, the global transition to digital platforms has severely undermined traditional revenue models and has eroded the financial positions of news media. In South Africa, declining advertising income and the limited ability of audiences to pay for subscriptions have led to shrinking newsrooms, closed bureaus, and constrained reporting capacity. Meanwhile, digital platforms exacerbate these pressures by capturing audiences and monetisation opportunities that traditionally sustained news outlets.
The Inquiry found that major global platforms (
Google,
Meta,
Microsoft,
TikTok, X and AI companies such as
OpenAI) dominate key gateways through which South Africans access information, namely search, social media, and AI-powered tools. In search, Google maintains a dominant position, where news represents. 5-10% of queries and drives user engagement that is monetised through commercial advertising. Google does however not compensate South African media for the news content it displays
or summarises.
Referral traffic to media websites has declined sharply as users increasingly consume AI-
generated summaries or remain on Google’s own platforms. Furthermore, Google’s algorithmic structure tends to favour large foreign outlets over local or vernacular media, deepening inequality in content visibility
and advertising reach. Microsoft exhibits a similar foreign bias through its MSN service, which contracts relatively few South African publishers.
In terms of social media, platforms such as Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp),
YouTube, X and TikTok play a massive role in distributing news to South Africans, particularly within community and vernacular audiences. While these platforms gain immense engagement value from news, few South African outlets are accredited or technically enabled to monetise their content on the platforms. Both Meta and X have deprioritised posts containing news links, substantially reducing referral traffic to publishers’
sites.
The
SABC relies heavily on YouTube for content distribution but earns minimal revenue-share compensation. Social media algorithms also foster the spread of misinformation and disinformation by promoting sensationalist material over credible sources, imposing social costs that the media must absorb in combating fake news.
The Inquiry also found that AI chatbots and large language models have scraped online news content without compensation, using it to train AI systems and generate responses to user queries. Although news represents a small portion of total training data, this practice raises significant questions about the future
value of original journalism. While major AI companies now offer websites the ability to opt out of scraping, small and community media often lack the technical expertise to exercise these options.
The Inquiry observed that South Africa’s fragmented and resource-constrained media houses are too small individually to attract content licensing deals, but collectively they could offer significant value. At the same time, AItechnologies themselves hold potential for improving newsroom efficiency, enhancing audience engagement, and delivering innovative news formats, provided the media can access affordable tools and training.
In
AdTech, Google’s dominance across the AdTech stack has entrenched dependency and raised costsfor media, with its bundled systems giving preferential treatment to its own exchange. While South Africa cannot resolve these global distortions alone, aligning with international regulatory and legal efforts could
help restore fairness. AI and digital platforms also offer opportunities for innovation, but only if local media can collectively bargain, build technical capacity, and access fair compensation for their content. Sustained
collaboration, investment, and policy support remain vital to ensure a diverse, credible, and sustainable South African media ecosystem.
After extensive engagement and two months of negotiations with global platforms and stakeholders, the Competition Commission has finalised a comprehensive package of remedies designed to restore fairness, transparency, and sustainability in South Africa’s media ecosystem.
Most major platforms have
agreed on the remedies and will implement them immediately post-launch. Central to these outcomes is a R688 million Media Support Package agreed with Google and YouTube, which will fund national, community, and vernacular media through a combination of content licensing, innovation grants, and
capacity-building initiatives. This includes support for newsroom innovation, contributions to the
Digital News Transformation Fund, and funding for vernacular-language training through the Media Development & Diversity Agency (MDDA). The vernacular training with MDDA is one of the various initiatives under the
package.
Google will also introduce new user tools to prioritise local news sources, provide technical
assistance to improve website performance, share enhanced audience data, and establish an
African News Innovation Forum. Microsoft, in turn, will extend its MSN news contracts to include five additional national publishers.
In the social media space, Meta will create a
Media Liaison Office in South Africa and expand monetisation access through workshops, ad credits, and the removal of follower thresholds. YouTube will offer
automatic access for all South African media to its Partner Programme and support the SABC with direct ad sales and archive digitisation. TikTok will roll out its Publisher Support Suite in South Africa, including monetisation and analytics tools, while X Corp will make all monetisation programmes available locally
and provide training workshops.
All platforms will implement digital literacy initiatives to strengthen media resilience and counter misinformation.
Remedies in AdTech and AI will align South Africa with leading global standards. Google will extend transparency measures from the EU, improving visibility into advertising costs and publisher payments, and will remove self-preferencing practices within its ad systems. AI companies will offer South African
media the same content controls and opt-out mechanisms available in the EU, alongside biannual training to support the development of a fair and functioning market for licensed content.
The Inquiry recommends that the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition issue a block exemption to enable collective bargaining by South African media over platform monetisation terms, AI content licensing, AdTech pricing, and joint ad-sales for community media. In parallel, the Department of Communication and Digital Technology is encouraged to develop content-moderation regulations under the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (ECTA), introducing self-regulation frameworks for
social media platforms and establishing an independent
Social Media Ombud to oversee public complaints and moderation practices.
Said MDPMI Chair
James Hodge: “The Final Report and these remedies represent a landmark step toward rebalancing digital markets, protecting fair competition, and rebuilding the long-term sustainability of South
Africa’s news media.
They reaffirm that a healthy, independent, and diverse press is essential to democracy, and that collective action, equitable regulation, and platform accountability are vital to safeguarding that principle for the digital future.”
[ENDS]
Issued by:
Siyabulela Makunga, Spokesperson
On behalf of: The Competition Commission of South Africa
