All You Need to Know About Apple’s News Partner Program

Apple, has introduced the News Partner Program which is aimed at expanding Apple’s work with and in support of journalism. Here’s all you need to know about Apple’s News Partner Program.

As explained by Apple. “The News Partner Program aims to ensure Apple News customers maintain access to trusted news and information from many of the world’s top publishers, while supporting publishers’ financial stability and advancing efforts to further media literacy and diversity in news coverage and newsrooms.“

The News Partner Program is designed to subscribe to news publications providing their news content to Apple News in the Apple News Format (ANF). ANF enables users to have a great reading experience and for publishers it unlocks the full benefits of the platform. ANF even supports advertising by letting publishers keep 100 percent of the advertising revenue sold within Apple News. Right from day one, Apple News has been supporting publishers by offering a commission rate of 15 percent on qualifying in-app purchase subscriptions.

“Providing Apple News customers with access to trusted information from our publishing partners has been our priority from day one,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services. “For more than a decade, Apple has offered our customers many ways to access and enjoy news content across our products and services. We have hundreds of news apps from dozens of countries around the world available in the App Store, and created Apple News Format to offer publishers a tool to showcase their content and provide a great experience for millions of Apple News users.”

Eligibility and Requirements

(Source: Apple Newsroom)

• Participants must maintain a robust Apple News channel in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and publish all content to that channel in ANF. For publishers based outside of these regions and who do not publish in ANF, they must share content via an RSS feed as permitted by their rights.
• The primary function of a publisher app must be to deliver original, professionally authored news content.
• Publishers’ apps must be available on the App Store and allow users to purchase auto-renewable subscriptions through Apple’s in-app purchase system.
• Publishers must agree to a separate addendum to the Apple Developer Program License Agreement.
• The News Publisher Program is available to Apple Developer Program members globally.

Apple’s News Partner Program will also globally collaborate, fund and support leading organisations that “educate news consumers on media literacy and further efforts to diversify news coverage and newsrooms.” Apple has further stated that the program will support specific projects whose details will be announced at a later date.