Google News Showcase is launching in Austria

Google News Showcase, our new product and licensing program for news publishers, will begin rolling out in Austria today, building on our ongoing commitment to support journalism. Backed by our recent $1 billion global investment in news, Google News Showcase supports publishers by giving them a new way to curate their high-quality content on Google’s News and Discover platforms, connecting their readers with the news that matters to them. 

The Austrian publishers taking part at launch include, among others, Der Standard (derstandard.at), Wimmer Medien (nachrichten.at), Russmedia (vn.at, vol.at, vienna.at), Salzburger Nachrichten (sn.at, salzburg24.at) and Moser Holding (tt.com). These publishers represent a mix of local, regional and national news organizations around the country. 

Logos of some of our News Showcase partners in Austria including DerStandard, OÖNachrichten, Salzburger Nachrichten, Salzburg24, Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Vorarlberg Online, Vienna.at, Tiroler Tageszeitung

News Showcase is just the latest investment in our ongoing commitment to support journalism around the globe. Through both our services and direct funding of news organizations, Google is one of the world’s biggest financial supporters of news.

More than 800 news publications globally, more than half of which are in Europe, have now signed deals for News Showcase since last year. These span more than a dozen countries, including India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Czechia, Japan, the U.K. and Argentina,with discussions underway in a number of other countries. More than 90% of the publications signed up around the world represent local, regional or community news. 

“As the first German-language daily newspaper on the Internet, DER STANDARD was interested from the start in bringing its quality content to interested readers in all possible ways,” says Gerlinde Hinterleitner, online publisher of Der Standard, a national newspaper based in Vienna. “Google News Showcase is a logical continuation of this path. We look forward to being one of the first publishing houses in Austria to participate."

With News Showcase panels, news organizations can curate how their content appears. All panels direct readers to the full articles on the publishers’ websites, driving valuable traffic back to publishers and enabling them to deepen their relationships with readers. 

An example of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in Austria.

“Google News Showcase is a great way for us to present our content to an even larger audience. Quality journalism from Upper Austria is our strength — and that is exactly what we want to promote through this new product,” says Gino Cuturi, Managing Director of OÖNachrichten, the leading regional newspaper in Upper Austria. “We aim to get even more readers excited about our digital products and to convince them of our local reporting in the long term.”

“Experience shows that there is still great potential for regional daily newspapers to attract occasional digital readers and then develop them into regular readers,” says Hermann Petz, the CEO of Tiroler Tageszeitung, the leading regional newspaper in Tyrol. “We see Google News Showcase as an opportunity to expand and monetize this ‘widest circle of readers.’”

An example of News Showcase panel layouts from our publishing partners in Austria

News Showcase content from our publisher partners will automatically start to appear in Google News and on Discover starting today. As part of our licensing deals, we’re also paying news organizations for access to select paywalled content, giving people in Austria access to a wide range of news content. We work closely with news outlets to determine the right amount of content to share to help drive subscriptions.

“With the new storytelling formats, quality media can better disseminate journalistic content together with Google News Showcase,” says Georg Burtscher, Managing Director of Russmedia, the leading regional publishing house in Vorarlberg. “VN.at,Vol.at and Vienna.at are known for testing innovations in everyday life - that is also the case with this initiative.”

"The importance of independent and high-quality journalism for society has become very apparent in the Coronavirus-crisis – news gives people the information they need about their communities, people have faith in it,” says Maximilian Dasch, Managing Director of Salzburger Nachrichten. “Google News Showcase promotes digital news and provides more support for journalism."

For many years, Google has invested millions of euros in Austrian journalism through innovation funding. With funding and support from the Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund, DER STANDARD built an AI solution to help combat online hate speech in comments, resulting in a 50% decrease in the time taken by moderators. We also supported a project from news agency APA to create login and paywall infrastructure to drive digital subscriptions. Plus, we worked with vol.at who brought together behavioral science and tech innovation to create a loyalty program, leading to a tenfold increase in registrations. And in 2020, with the spread of COVID-19, the Google News Initiative offered support to 10 Austrian newsrooms through the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund, providing them financial assistance to get them through the pandemic. 

We’re committed to helping people access information online, supporting an open web and partnering with news organizations in Austria and around the world to reach new readers and develop sustainable business models online.

by Christine Antlanger-Winter via The Keyword