NBCUniversal expands advertising sales deal with Apple News, adds Stocks

By MixDex Article may include affiliate links

NBCUniversal has extended and expanded its advertising sales deal with Apple for Apple News and Stocks.

  • NBCU has had the exclusive rights to sell ads in Apple News on behalf of Apple since 2017.
  • The company will continue to sell ads on Apple News but is now adding the company’s Stocks ad space to its portfolio.
  • The deal includes the ability for NBCU to sell targeted ads on all publisher content found in both services.
  • However, individual publishers are still free to sell ads in their own articles and keep all of the revenue.
  • Any ads sold by NBCU on behalf of Apple, however, have revenue split between Apple and NBCUniversal as well as the publisher.
  • While NBC wouldn’t reveal exact numbers, the number of advertisers on the platform has grown from about 100 to several hundred, reports Axios.
  • NBCUniversal itself maintains a strong presence of Apple News, with multiple brands contributing content.
  • All that said, it’s a common complaint among advertisers that while the Apple News app does drive traffic to their content, it’s tough to make much money from advertising, especially on ones NBCU sells.
  • Apple also offers Apple News+, a premium tier that gives users access to select magazine and newspaper content, and Apple shares a percentage of the revenue that subscription fee generates with publishers — though it’s reportedly nowhere near the 85% share that music and app developers can walk away with when Apple sells or streams their work.