The News Corporation (ASX: NWS) share price snuck up 0.7% today to reach $31.58 by the market's close.
This follows news last night reported by The Australian that News Corp and Facebook Inc (NYSE: FB) are on "the cusp of a commercial agreement".
The agreement relates to Facebook's compliance with parliament's news media bargaining code that came into force last month.
Image source: Getty Images
Facebook to pay News Corp for use of its journalism
Many assumed there was bad blood a few weeks ago between Facebook and media outlets after Facebook banned Australian users from posting news content. However, according to The Australian, we can expect to hear something over the coming days about an agreement being reached between News Corp and the social media giant. Facebook has already struck deals with some other Australian news media outlets.
As a product of parliament's News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, Facebook and Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ: GOOGL) ((NASDAQ: GOOG) Google must pay local news publishers to feature their content.
The news media bargaining code only applies when the government deems there is a major imbalance between the news media organisation and the digital platform.
Was anything else impacting the News Corp share price today?
Outside of the news media bargaining code featuring in the news, there hasn't been much else of note going on for News Corp lately. The last price-sensitive update provided by the media giant was back on 18 February when it advised the market it had reached an agreement with Google regarding the use of its content.
Reuters reports that the US is presently addressing the same issue that's currently being worked out between Facebook and News Corp.
On Friday in Washington, the antitrust subcommittee convened to listen to industry insights regarding the problems facing news organisations. Specifically, how to control the hold that Facebook and Google have on how people consume news content.
It's hard to tell whether the news media bargaining code impacted the News Corp share price today since it was a rather uneventful day for the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) overall.
