COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW – 14/02/2019
Mathew Ingram
There have been rumors about a forthcoming Apple News subscription plan for some time now, with the first reports emerging in April last year, when Bloomberg said the company was working on a Netflix-style news service that would include dozens of publishers for one monthly fee. As talks continued, some media companies were said to be reluctant to sign up, and this week it became obvious why: According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the tech giant wants to keep 50 percent of the revenue from its subscription program, and it also has no plans to share any of the user data it collects with publishers, including credit-card info and email addresses. The 50 percent of revenue publishers share will also be pooled and split up based on whose content gets the most engagement, according to the Journal report.