Google on Tuesday announced “Your News Update,” a new audio service that offers a customized news feed with content from CBS, Fox News, CNN, and dozens of other media partners.
The new service, which is available on smart speakers and the Google Assistant app, is the company’s response to what it says is a radio news experience that can feel very pre-internet—one that lacks the ability to easily search or create a personal mix of news stories.
Your News Update will provide users a series of one or two minute news clips based on their interests, including sports and the stock market, and where they live. After the shorter clips are played (or skipped), the news segments get longer and more tailored to the listener’s particular tastes.
Liz Gannes, a product manager for audio news at Google, likens the new service to a morning radio program like NPR’s Morning Edition that offers a fast-moving overview of many topics. The Google service, however, makes it possible to rapidly skip segments, and uses A.I. To adapt to a listener’s preference.
Other media outlets providing content for the Google service include the Washington Post, Axios, Cheddar, and the NBA. In some cases, the audio clips they produce for Your News Update will be taken from conventional broadcasts, while in other cases the clips will be made specifically for Google. An executive with public radio distributor, PRX, told Coins2Day the company will offer clips from its show The World, while also creating a separate series of 2-3 minute audio segments aimed at a home speaker audience.
Reuters, meanwhile, says it will source much of the content it provides to Google content from its TV service. An executive from the news wire service added that it expects to add content in foreign languages once Google expands the service, which is only available in the U.S. At the outset to other countries.
The media outlets are all being paid to participate in the audio news service, and the content they contribute is not exclusive to Google. The company would not disclose how much it is paying individual partners, but a person familiar with the project said the total investment will be “way over $5 million.”
A Google spokesperson said its outlay is designed in part to seed a larger market for audio news content designed for speakers and voice assistants.
“This is a new and nascent market so we want to support publishers as they create this content, since we strongly believe in the audio web and it’s potential,” said the spokesperson.
While Google’s new audio product is likely to appeal to news junkies, it may be best suited to those who own the company’s hardware like an Android phone or a Google Home speaker, for now. While iPhone owners can access the service by downloading the Google Assistant app, it is not an optimal solution for the home or car. As an alternative, they can ask Apple’s digital assistant, Siri, to read a news briefing—the service is more limited but is optimized for Apple hardware.
For those who do want to try Google’s Your News Update, the service is able to select an initial lineup of shows by drawing on search history and other data associated with a user’s Google account. Users will also be able to provide additional signals about their news preferences—in addition to skipping unwanted segments—by choosing preferred outlets on a settings screen that looks like this:
Google’s Your News Update announcement comes as the company, along with rival Facebook, are pursuing broader initiatives to support news publishers. Those initiatives also coincide with a political backlash against large tech companies, and as traditional news outlets blame Facebook and Google for siphoning off a large share of their ad revenue.
Google’s audio news initiative also comes as tech companies explore how to redesign products for an age of computing that is increasingly being designed by voice. While smart speakers, such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa, have emerged as the break-out voice product, everything from cars to watches are being designed to respond to voice commands.
This story was updated at 3:15pm ET to clarify how Google’s service can obtain data to create an initial lineup of shows.
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