Trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau has granted competition authorities a four-month extension to finalise a report concluding its investigation into the impact of Big Tech on declining newsroom revenues in SA.
The 18-month period for completion of the inquiry and a final report was due to expire on April 23.
The Competition Commission released a provisional report on the media and digital platform market inquiry in February recommending Google compensate the media industry to the value of R300m-R500m annually for three to five years.
That could boost SA’s ailing traditional media houses, the revenues of which have dried up over the past decade due to the rise of technology platforms and shifting consumer behaviour.
In a government gazette, dated April 17, Tau granted the commission’s request to extend the deadline of the final report.
“I hereby extend the period for completion of the inquiry and the final report for a period of four months until 22 August 2025,” he said.
The commission had sought an extension under the Competition Act “to allow for a reasonable period to further consider the draft final report, draft remedial actions and recommendations, and to finalise engagements with certain affected stakeholders before a decision is taken on the report”.
The inquiry, initiated in October 2023, was designed to examine the effects of digital platforms such as X, Facebook and Google on the distribution and monetisation of media content and whether they used anticompetitive or harmful practices that needed to be addressed.
Other remedies to address the imbalance are the removal of search bias in favour of foreign media and YouTube, as well as the promotion of vernacular and community media.
The commission’s recommendations received a mixed reception.
Parliament welcomed the measures against Big Tech to correct the imbalance imposed on SA’s media industry, saying these would bode well for SA’s public broadcaster, the SABC.
US tech major Google has spoken out against the commission’s recommendation that it should pay SA media houses, saying such a policy would result in less freedom of choice for online news consumers.
It had been expected that local authorities would face challenges in enforcing these rules against Big Tech if they come into effect, after Meta and Google’s decision to remove links and block news related content to avoid paying media companies in places such as Canada and California.
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