Oct 15, 2019 - Economy & Business

NBC extends deal to be exclusive seller of ads in Apple Stocks and Apple News

Photo by Noam Galai/FilmMagic/Getty Images

NBCUniversal has extended its partnership with Apple News to now be the exclusive seller of ads in Apple Stocks, as well as Apple News, executives tells Axios.

Why it matters: The multi-year partnership means that NBCU can sell ads against all the stories in the main feed of Apple Stocks, as well as Apple News for several years. Other publishers can still sell ads again their own articles.

Details: NBCU struck its exclusive Apple News sales partnership with Apple in January of 2017, and as part of its renewal, it now expanding to sell Stocks exclusively as well.

  • NBC can also sell ads exclusively against all publisher content on both apps via audience targeting.  

By the numbers: Krishan Bhatia, NBCU's EVP of Business Operations & Strategy, declined to say how much money the company makes off of its Apple News partnership, but "it's a very meaningfully-sized business compared to what we do on Youtube, Twitter or Snapchat."

  • According to Bhatia, the number of advertisers on the platform has doubled over the past year from over 100 to "multiple hundreds."
  • 12 NBCU brands publish on Apple News, ranging from "SNL" to "CNBC."
  • The company says NBCU editorial content has driven more than 42 million hours of engagement since January 2018.

Be smart: Bhatia has found that the verticals that sell well on Apple News are the same that tend to frequent print magazines, like financial services, luxury, and entertainment.

  • "It's a highly-scaled audience with high engagement in a premium content environment. The average user spends over an hour per month on it."

Yes, but: While NBCU is making money, most smaller publishers Axios has spoken with say they aren't. It's common to hear publishers say they get millions of monthly views on Apple News, but rarely make any real money off of them.

  • Apple News does let publishers sell ads against their own content, and keep 100% of revenues they sell themselves, but it takes a cut of ads they sell on behalf of publishers on its platform.

Editor's note: NBC is an investor in Axios and Andy Lack, chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, is a member of the Axios board of directors.

Go deeper: NBC local TV group will no longer use ratings to sell ads

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