Google News Initiative, YouTube and Oxford University agree to extension of support for the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report to August 2025

The Google News Initiative, YouTube and Oxford University have agreed on an extension to the current grant for the Reuters Institute Digital News Report and the related Digital News Project for a further year covering 2025. The extension builds on the existing agreement with Google to support the project that was originally announced in 2015 with previous extensions in 2018, 2020, and 2023.

The new extension to August 2025 will allow the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism to continue the Digital News Report with its global reach, covering at least the same number markets as the 2024 report, which was made possible by support from Google and 17 other sponsors.

The Digital News Report is an independent academic study which has been supported by a wide range of partners since its creation in 2012. It is the world’s largest international comparative survey of the major trends in digital news consumption and is widely used by industry, analysts, and researchers across the world.

The Google News Initiative is the main sponsor of the Digital News Report, and in 2023, YouTube joined the diverse range of supporters which make the report possible. The other 17 sponsors of the 2024 report were: the BBC, Centre d’études sur les médias at Université Laval, Code for Africa, Coimisiún na Meán, the Dutch Media Authority (CVdM), Edelman, Fritt Ord, the Korea Press Foundation, the Leibniz-Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut, the Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland, NHK, Ofcom, Reuters, Roskilde University, the University of Canberra, the University of Navarra, and Fundación Gabo.

Many of our partners produce their own national reports based on the research conducted for the international report, and the data collected for the Digital News Report is made available to others to enable a wide range of further in-depth analysis by both industry professionals and academic researchers across the world.

The financial value of the Google News Initiative’s agreement with Oxford University (including YouTube’s contribution) for the extension to August 2025 is $2.07m.

Note: The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the core funder of the Reuters Institute, based in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. The Institute was launched in November 2006 and developed from the Reuters Fellowship Programme, established at Oxford more than 35 years ago. The Institute, an international research centre in the comparative study of journalism, is committed to exploring the future of journalism worldwide through debate, engagement, and research.

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