Los Angeles: The New York Times is removing its content from Apple News, dealing a blow to the iPhone maker’s news aggregation service and app for the iPhone, iPad, Mac and other devices.
The Times had been part of the Apple News app, which debuted in 2015, for several years, but balked at joining the paid Apple News+ service when that launched in March 2019. The newspaper company said Apple News didn’t give the paper enough control of its news business or reader relationships.
“Apple News does not align with our strategy to fund quality journalism by building direct relationships with paying readers,” the Times said Monday in a statement. “We believe quality publishers should be fairly compensated for the expensive proposition of creating and providing platforms valuable independent journalism. We’re confident we’ll continue to have strong partnerships with Apple through a variety of other products.”
The exit is a notable setback for the Apple News service, which has been criticized by multiple media organizations because of its revenue split and decision to limit the amount of user data provided to content organizations.
Late last year, the service’s business head exited and a replacement was named a few weeks ago.
The Times has provided just “a few stories per day,” Apple said in a statement. “We are committed to providing the more than 125 million people who use Apple News with the most trusted information and will continue to do so through our collaboration with thousands of publishers, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle, the Miami Herald, and the San Francisco Chronicle and we will continue to add great new outlets for readers.”
The Cupertino, California-based technology giant said it’s “committed to supporting quality journalism through the proven business models of advertising, subscriptions, and commerce.”-Bloomberg
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