Tech platforms are not giving fair value to UK news providers thanks to an ‘unequal’ relationship, ITV’s top news boss has said.
Michael Jermey, the broadcaster’s director of news, said relations between his company and the tech giants were ‘not a properly commercial one’.
Speaking to peers on the Lords’ Communications and Digital Committee this week he said companies like his do not know ‘what value is being extracted from your content’.
He told the committee, which is investigating the future of news: ‘In terms of our relationship with the tech platforms, I think it’s an unequal one, and not a properly commercial one.’
Michael Jermey, boss of ITV, said the company’s relationship with tech firms was unequal
Mr Jermey added: ‘You don’t know what the algorithm does. You don’t know what value is being extracted from your content.
‘And you remain unconvinced when a California-based tech platform says news doesn’t matter to it.
‘And yet the Ofcom digital survey suggests that consumers think it’s the third most important platform for news in the UK.
‘I think it’s a relationship that is unequal where a lot of the value creation is coming from the PSBs [public service broadcasters] and other UK news providers, but the value isn’t flowing back to them.’
The ITV boss said he hoped more could be done in the next decade to create a ‘fair platform’.
Mr Jermey said he would like to see ‘content creators’ get value for their content while allowing these tech giants to ‘continue to generate traffic’, but share the profits more ‘equitably’.