Almost $22.2 million in Google payments have made their way to 108 Canadian news outlets, says the organization distributing money the tech giant agreed to give media businesses in exchange for an exemption from the Online News Act.
The Canadian Journalism Collective announced Wednesday that the top recipients, who received more than $1 million each, include Postmedia, the Globe and Mail, Metroland Media Group, La Presse, Coopérative nationale de l’information indépendante, Black Press Group and The Canadian Press.
About 100 other organizations received smaller amounts, many of which reached six figures.
The payments were issued by April 23 and make up sixty per cent of the totals organizations will each receive, with two more tranches expected to flow by the end of the year.
The money is part of the $100 million in payments Google will make annually in order to secure a five-year exemption to the Online News Act, which is meant to help journalism recoup losses incurred in part by tech platforms.
Sarah Spring, executive director of the collective, touted the payments as a way of ensuring “Big Tech compensates news media for their journalism equitably and fairly across Canada’s news ecosystem.”
“It’s a historic investment that is empowering a broad range of voices and setting new democratic precedents in media funding and transparency,” she said in a press release.
About $98 million of the cash Google is handing over this year will make its way to journalism organizations with $2 million being held back for administrative fees, said Spring.
CBC will get seven per cent of the total, equating to roughly $6.8 million.
Broadcasters will split a pool of $29.4 million, or about 30 per cent of the fund, Spring said.
Publishers will split the remainder of around $61.7 million.
Their totals will likely rise beyond current estimates when the collective works out whether any applicant outlets are ineligible, allowing previously earmarked money to flow to the media businesses that meet requirements.
The collective says it will continue to publish the names of recipients of the money and how much they were given every two weeks.
Eligible publishers were previously told by the collective that they will likely receive about $13,798 per full-time equivalent journalist employed based on a 2,000-hour year. Broadcasters were estimated to receive about $6,806 per eligible worker. That equates to $6.90 per claimed hour for publishers and $3.40 per hour for broadcasters.
Industry group News Media Canada pegged the amount even higher, with publishers getting between $18,000 and $20,000 per journalist. It said its estimates were bigger because it factored in ineligible organizations.
Qualifying organizations had to meet several criteria: they must operate in Canada, have two or more journalists in the country and be a member of a recognized journalistic association or follow a code of ethics ensuring fairness, independence and rigour are applied to reporting.
The Online News Act, which helped determine the criteria, is meant to extract compensation from search engine and social media companies with a total annual global revenue of $1 billion or more and 20 million or more Canadian average monthly unique visitors or average monthly active users.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is also subject to the law, but decided to block access to Canadian news on its platforms to avoid having to make payments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 30, 2025.
