Apple and NBCU have come to an agreement to extend the company’s exclusive right to sell ads for Apple in Apple News. The deal will also add the Apple Stocks app, allowing NBCU to sell in-line ads for that app, too. The deal doesn’t affect publishers (like TMO), who can continue to sell their own ads for their articles in Apple News.
According to Axios, Krishan Bhatia, NBCU’s Executive Vice President of Business Operations & Strategy did not offer specific numbers for how much this business was worth to the company. She did, however, say that the Apple News ad business was, “a very meaningfully-sized business compared to what we do on Youtube, Twitter or Snapchat.”
She also said that the number of different companies and brands advertising on Apple News has, “doubled over the past year from over 100 to ‘multiple hundreds.'”
Apple’s own ad-selling group—iAd—was shut down in 2016 after failing to earn much traction in the ad-selling business for apps. NBCU has been selling ads for Apple News since. Adding the Stocks app to the deal may be an indicator that customer usage of Stocks is high.