Meta Platforms cutting funds for news partners - Axios
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Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is officially cutting funding for Facebook's news partners, Axios reports, bringing to fruition some changes reported last week on where Facebook was shifting its emphasis.
Three years ago, Facebook signed tens of millions of dollars in deals with news publishers to help feed a news section on the platform - and more still was spent on news videos to feed Facebook's Watch tab. Some 50 publishers were receiving payment to supply their content.
But "a lot has changed," the company told Axios. "Most people do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn't make sense to over invest in areas that don't align with user preferences."
That shows an increasing indication that Meta sees itself as a destination for short-form video a la TikTok (BDNCE). Its earnings call Wednesday featured news there, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg said its Reels video offering saw 30% higher time spent in Q2 and that the product has hit a $1B annual run rate in revenue, faster than its Stories feature hit that milestone.
Meta Platforms (META) is down 8% early Thursday in the wake of its first revenue decline as a public company.
Last week, WSJ reported that Facebook's media-partnership leader Campbell Brown signaled the resource shift away from the News tab and newsletter platform and toward the "creator economy."