Facebook Instant Articles Just Don't Add Up for Publishers (Unabridged)

Here are some key numbers for content licensors in digital media: Netflix will pay approximately $3 billion in licensing and production fees this year to the television and film industry; Hulu is paying $192 million to license South Park; Spotify pays out 70 percent of its gross revenues to the music labels that hold the underlying rights to Spotify's catalogue. Now here's what Facebook is guaranteeing a variety of publishers, including the New York Times, BuzzFeed, and the Atlantic, which are posting articles in its new "instant articles" feature: $0. That's pretty much the deal being offered in other similar digital distribution agreements by Apple News, Snapchat Discover, and an anticipated similar offering at Google. Nothing.