News in brief: Japan to issue antitrust order versus Google; UK streaming ads market passes £1bn; and Reuters and Gannett to launch bundled subscription.

Japan to issue antitrust order versus Google

The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) is set to issue Google with a cease-and-desist order, alleging antitrust violations over its search advertising revenue and pre-installation contracts with mobile operators. According to a report from The Japan Times, the prospective ruling follows an investigation which commenced in October last year. Should the order be issued, Google would be obliged to ensure no payments derived from search advertising could be made to phone manufacturers in return for preinstallation of its Chrome browser.

UK streaming ads market passes £1bn

The UK streaming ads market is estimated to have totalled £1.1bn in 2024, amounting to 30% of the traditional linear TV advertising market, according to a forecast by Ampere Analysis. The total represents a sizable increase from the £746m total estimated in 2022, driven by the launch of Netflix’s ad-supported subscription tier and the continued success of national broadcasters’ streaming efforts, most notably ITV’s revised service ITVX.  Rory Gooderick, senior analyst at Ampere, commented, “When looking at the advertising landscape in the UK right now, the ad tiers offered by the [US] streamers are still fairly immature, with low advertising loads, and a minority of customers are on ad-supported tiers, aside from Amazon which introduced ads for all customers.”

Reuters and Gannett to launch bundled subscription

Reuters has partnered with US newspaper company Gannett to launch a new subscription-based content bundle, according to executives speaking to Axios. The package will be sold by Reuters, with Gannett receiving a portion of the total sales revenue, and will contain licensable international and national story feeds from Reuters alongside national and local content from Gannett. Kristin Roberts, chief content officer at Ganett, commented, “I think there are opportunities for us to be serving other local media companies in our competitive set, as well as very, very small organisations that are looking for national, state or regional content.”