News Corp Could Lose $9 Million by Dropping Google Ad Tools, Former Exec Testifies

 In a dramatic revelation during the Justice Department's high-profile antitrust trial, a former executive from News Corp testified that the company would have faced a $9 million revenue shortfall if it had switched from Google's advertising products in 2017. Stephanie Layser, who worked as an advertising technology executive at News Corp from 2017 to 2022, detailed how Google’s advertising tools, despite being "clunky and slow," were entrenched in the market, making it nearly impossible for publishers to escape their dominance.

News Corp Faces $9 Million Loss from Potentially Dropping Google Ad Tools, Former Exec Reveals in Antitrust Trial

Layser’s testimony highlighted that Google's control over digital advertising was so pervasive that it was effectively the sole service utilized by publishers for ad transactions. News Corp, which earned $83.3 million in digital ad revenue in 2016, relied heavily on Google's ad exchange, which generated $18.4 million in revenue from its advertisers. During the trial, Layser noted that approximately half of this revenue came from advertisers exclusive to Google’s network. This exclusivity implied that abandoning Google would result in a substantial revenue loss for News Corp.

By the end of Layser’s tenure in 2022, Google’s tools facilitated 70% to 80% of News Corp's ad deals, underscoring the company's dependence on Google’s ad technology.

Layser’s testimony follows the Justice Department's opening arguments, which accuse Google of monopolistic practices through its control over the ad tools used by both publishers and advertisers, as well as the ad exchange connecting them. The DOJ alleges that Google extracts up to 35 cents from every dollar flowing through its ad systems, consolidating its market dominance.