While Alphabet/Google and Meta battle antitrust lawsuits in the U.S. courts, their platforms are growing as a news source, at least in New Zealand.

This trend comes at a pivotal time in New Zealand because some Google News Showcase deals are starting to expire. Over the past few years, Alphabet/Google has signed 50 deals with the country’s news publishers and broadcasters.

Google’s deals are important to many publishers and contribute to the news companies’ bottom line.

Canadian billionaire Jim Grenon, who has taken almost a 10% stake in NZME (and is seeking a board seat), notes the following about company’s Google deal: “From NZME’s perspective, I view it as a payment that is virtually all profit, but one with a large risk of being cancelled and which would not be easily replaced.”

Furthermore, the New Zealand government’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill — which would mandate platforms to pay for news publishers’ content — isn’t going anywhere. Trump’s economic policies are not helping platform legislation.

Readers seek social platforms for news

For years, Alphabet and Meta have argued they are not important news platforms and therefore should not pay for news publishers’ content. However, our latest data somewhat debunks this.

Our 2025 trust in news in New Zealand report shows Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are growing as news platforms. They are now among the seven most used platforms for the news in the country.

New Zealanders top 10 platforms for news consumption in 2025 are:

1. Stuff (66%)
2. TVNZ (62%)
3. NZ Herald (60%)
4. Facebook (58%)
5. YouTube (43%)
6. RNZ (41%)
7. Instagram (39%)
8. Commercial radio (other) (39%)
9. Three News (38%)
10. Newsroom (34%)

Of social media platforms, Facebook is the main source of news with 58% of New Zealanders using it for news. However, it is YouTube that is growing fast as a news platform. In 2024, 33% of New Zealanders used YouTube platform as a source of news; however, in 2025, the figure was 43%. Furthermore, 39% of New Zealanders used Meta’s Instagram for news.

News consumption patterns in New Zealand are shifting somewhat differently when compared internationally. The Reuters Digital News Report 2024 shows global use of Facebook for news has declined with news consumption “down 4 percentage points, across all countries.”

However, the Reuters report also finds YouTube was used by almost one-third (31%) of those surveyed by it. The report notes the “main locus of news video consumption is online platforms (72%) rather than publisher Web sites (22%).”

The challenge of capturing young audiences

Needless to say, it is younger people who consume the news on these platforms, and they also contribute to selective news avoidance.

One young New Zealand female (18-24 years old) said she avoids the news on legacy media sites because “I mainly see everything on social media beforehand.”

Roughly 66% of those who used Facebook for news were younger than 34 years old, and 71% of those using Instagram were 18-24 years old. YouTube was used by 53% of those aged 18-24 years old and 51% aged 25-34 years old.

When the news is increasingly consumed on social media and video-sharing platforms, it will be challenging for news publishers to capture younger audiences and monetise their content.

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