News Corp has reached a deal to let Facebook Inc. feature headlines from The Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones media properties, as well as the New York Post, in the social-media giant’s coming news section, the companies said.
Other publications that have agreed to participate include the Washington Post GHC, -0.18% , BuzzFeed News and Business Insider, people familiar with the matter said. The New York Times NYT, +0.58% as been in talks with Facebook, but a spokeswoman for the paper declined to comment on whether it had reached a deal.
The deal, for which News Corp NWSA, -1.46% NWS, -0.86% will be paid a licensing fee, presented some obstacles due to the Journal’s firm digital subscription business model, people familiar with the matter said. Now that the issue has been settled, the way is cleared for the product to launch by as early as the end of the month. The financial terms of the arrangement weren’t disclosed.
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The licensing fees Facebook FB, -2.38% had been offering ranged as high as $3 million a year for larger, national news outlets to several hundred thousand dollars for smaller, regional publications, the Journal previously reported. The deals are for three years, people familiar with the matter have said.
“People want to see high quality news on Facebook,” said Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder and chief executive. “I’m excited we’ll have the opportunity to include award-winning journalism from The Wall Street Journal [and other U.S. News Corp properties] in our news tab.”
Facebook has sought to include news from about 200 different publications, although it only is offering to pay about a quarter of the new organizations that will be involved, people familiar with the matter have said.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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