The British Broadcasting Corporation has filed a complaint with a UK antitrust regulator complaining that aggregators like Apple News and Google News minimize credit for the stories they feature.
Apple Insider reports that the BBC is asking the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to require Apple and Google to more prominently credit news sources. And while the CMA’s decision would theoretically apply only to UK publications, any change made by the aggregators would presumably affect other publishers too. If audiences derive value from our content and services but attribute that value to gatekeepers instead of the BBC, then that undermines the perceived value of the BBC,” the broadcaster wrote in its complaint.
That perceived value may be particularly important to the BBC because it derives the majority of its funding from a licence fee paid by British households — so it’s important that the broadcaster’s work be visible and valued in order to maintain support for the fee. Apple recently paused AI news summaries after complaints of inaccuracy from the BBC and other publishers.
The new accusations come in the midst of an ongoing investigation by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over the two tech giants’ dominance in web browser engines and smartphone operating systems. The new complaint from the BBC suggests that aggregate news services minimize credit for the providers of the news those programs feature.
Because the BBC gets its budget from a unique “licence fee” model, it depends on worldwide brand recognition and respect for its efforts to justify its funding. Its income derives in large part from a fee paid by everyone in the UK who watches TV on any device.
The licence fee currently costs every British household $225.65 per year, as of April 1, 2025. The BBC uses this funding to provide news and other programming available across various platforms, including worldwide online news reporting.
The corporation does also gain some income from outside licensing, advertising and other sources. However, the UK license fee still accounts for 68 percent of its total annual income.
The BBC is asking for the CMA to require Apple and Google to give more prominence to the sources of news stories it features in its news and podcast apps. While such a ruling would theoretically only apply to UK sources, the two tech giants would likely apply those regulations to all new sources.
Although the BBC is best known outside the UK for its news and entertainment TV programming, it also operates the World Service radio news network, and is a prominent source of news online. It is this latter service that the corporation worries isn’t getting due credit for the content it provides to aggregators.
In its complaint to the CMA, the BBC said that “if audiences derive value from our content and services but attribute that value to gatekeepers instead of the BBC, then that undermines the perceived value of the BBC.” The “gatekeepers” in this case are primarily Apple and Google, along and other news apps, podcast services, and websites that aggregate news stories.
The corporation says that the downplaying of where Apple and Google gets their news “weakens” the relationship between the BBC and the UK population that funds it, according to its CMA submission. It has suggested that more prominent logos of the sources in aggregate services could be a possible solution.
The broadcaster argued that the actions by Google and Apple to downplay the sources of its Apple News content threatens the funding that allows it to expand its reach in other mediums. While the BBC is arguing for its own branding, a positive ruling from the CMA would likely demand fair branding for all sources of news stories seen in Apple and Google’s news apps and sites.
Apple has already run afoul of the BBC after it tried using its own AI engine to summarize UK news stories. The results often distorted or fabricated what the stories were actually about.
The BBC and others complained that the summaries were actively damaging their reputation for accuracy. Apple’s initial fix for the issue was simply to brand when a summary had been AI-generated.
It has now disabled news and entertainment summaries by default. Users can still turn them on, but are notified that the feature is in beta, and that the summaries could be inaccurate.
