• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, September 4, 2015

As Apple prepares to launch the new Apple News app, the technology giant is signing up publishing partners at a rapid clip. That reflects its central role in the media landscape and the growing importance of platforms to publishers in search of scale.

The deals also help position Apple as a competitor to rival news reader platforms like Flipboard and services like Google News.

This week, Apple announced deals with 18 major media companies representing over 50 publications as contributors to Apple News, including Condé Nast, Hearst, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Rolling Stone publisher Wenner Media, Bloomberg, Reuters, BuzzFeed, ESPN, Vox Media and Mashable, among others.

Apple is said to be offering generous terms to publishing partners, allowing them to sell ads directly to the platform and keep all of the revenue.

If they don’t succeed in selling all the ad inventory, they can have Apple offload the rest through iAd, and still keep 70% of the revenue, Apple’s usual revenue-sharing split for publishers.

To use the platform, publishers integrate Apple’s API with their own content management systems, allowing them to publish directly to Apple News with special formatting tools designed to make their content more visually engaging.

Apple has plenty of competition from tech giants also seeking to become content distribution platforms. Earlier this year, Facebook introduced “Instant Articles,” which allows publishers to host content directly on Facebook’s platform, making distribution and consumption easier and more efficient.

Separately, Snapchat has signed up a number of media partners for its new “Discover” content channel, including BuzzFeed, CNN, Comedy Central, ESPN, Vice, the Food Network, National Geographic, Cosmopolitan and People.