Google announced on Friday that it has signed an agreement with an organization to distribute $100 million to Canadian news companies. This comes after the company put out an an open call for news organizations wishing to receive compensation under the Online News Act (known commonly as Bill C-18). About 1,500 media outlets applied for the cash.

The Canadian Journalism Collective (CJC) will be the responsible for ensuring that eligible news organizations get their share of the money. It will review all news publishers who responded to the open call and distribute the funds to publishers who meet the criteria. Newsrooms may be eligible for funding if they are designated as a qualified Canadian journalism organization under the Income Tax Act. They must produce public interest news content, operate in Canada and employ at least two or more journalists.

The cash will be distributed proportionally according to the number of full-time journalists employed by the companies. It has not been announced when the companies will receive the money.

Sadia Zaman, CJC’s independent board director, said the collective “is committed to distributing this funding in a fair, transparent and inclusive manner in accordance with the regulations.”

“We look forward to working with the full diversity of the Canadian news ecosystem, including traditional print and broadcast organizations, and independent local news publishers, including those who serve Indigenous, Black and racialized communities and Francophone communities.”

CJC, a non-profit organization, was founded in May by a group of independent publishers and broadcasters. Its committee is made up of 12 independent media outlets representing French-language news, Black and minority communities, as well as Indigenous people. Some of the organizations include Pivot, The Resolve, IndigiNews, Village Media and the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations.

Google said it will also cease operating its Google News Showcase platform in Canada by the end of the year as it transitions to this new funding model. The platform allows publishers to package stories that appear in Google’s news products Google News and Discover. It also offers deeper storytelling and more context with features such as timelines within stylized news panels and related articles.

The company reached an agreement last year with the federal government about the Online News Act, which gives Canadians access to trusted news sources and provide financial benefits to news outlets. The bill aims to ensure that dominant platforms compensate news businesses when their content is made available on their sites.