After iAd's death, Apple will move Apple News ad sales to NBCUniversal — report

According to Re/Code, NBCUniversal sales head Linda Yaccarino has sent a letter to her staff alerting them to the deal, and annoucing the creation of a sales group for advertisement sales on Apple News.

Publishers can still sell their own advertisements, and will retain 100% of the revenue generated from those ads. Reportedly, ads sold by NBCUniversal will be split with the same 70% of generated revenue going to the content producer, and 30% to NBCUniversal.

Rumors started circulating right after Apple announced the closure of the service that a third party might take over the sales for the program. The shift will allegedly happen in January.

Apple has refused comment on the report.

Apple's iAd program was announced in June of 2010, and launched on July 1, 2010 for the iPhone, and and iPad-specific version launched with iOS 4.2.1 in November 2010. After a few years of dropping the minimum amount of advertising from $500,000 to $50 required to utilize the service, Apple discontinued the program on June 30, 2016.