BBC onboards Taboola amidst public scrutiny for declining audiences

BBC Global News will use Taboola as their content recommendation and native advertising monetization platform, across its global news and sport sites, in all markets except U.K. where BBC is commercially funded, it was announced today in a joint press release.

The announcement is interesting as it comes exactly at a time where BBC is under great scrutiny for their lack of concern about the declining audiences and the company’s funding. As Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has stated:  “We can see the BBC might be reticent to share detailed plans at this delicate moment, in the middle of licence fee negotiations, but we expected a clearer vision of how it will address the decline in its audiences and revenues, and manage the global transition from traditional TV viewing to online,”.

And on top of that, an independent report which found the company had covered up the “deceitful” methods used by journalist Martin Bashir to secure the infamous 1995 interview with Princess Diana, has deepened the BBC’s woes. MPs are reportedly planning to summon BBC bosses to give evidence about the Martin Bashir scandal, amid growing calls for Lord Hall of Birkenhead – BBC’s former director general – to explain himself in public.

Taboola is content recommendation platform that serves a feed that includes content related to what the reader is currently viewing together with native advertisement in below-article placements, enabling additional monetization on a revenue-share model with publishers that integrate it.

The agreement with BBC is announced as exclusive, a practice that Taboola implements with all partners. This is though frowned upon by several publishers in the EU markets, where exclusivity clauses are in most cases illegal, according to E.U. legislation.