The Associated Press (AP) is saying it hopes to negotiate more lucrative licensing deals with major web sites. Reporting for the AP itself, Michale Liedtke says that AP CEO Tom Curley discussed possible revenue initiatives to protect online content.
Here are some key facts from the Liedtke’s piece:
– Curley said after lowering its fees for U.S. newspapers by $30 million this year, the AP will reduce fees by a total of $45 million for newspapers and broadcasters next year. The plan had previously been to lower newspaper fees by $35 million.
– Curley said the AP expects its revenue to decrease both this year and next year.
– The AP intends to cut 10% of its payroll costs by the end of the year. The goal is to achieve this through attrition and early retirement offers, but layoffs haven’t been ruled out
– The AP’s contract with Google expires at the end of the year
– The AP’s four largest online partnerships are with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL.
The AP is talking about one idea to get revenue from ads attached to its content that would include bundles of some of the organizations top stories with those of newspapers and broadcasters on different topics. This concept would include AP landing pages that they say could compete with Google News, Yahoo News and MSN.
The AP is also considering charging readers to see some of its online content. What do you think about the ideas the AP is tossing around? Would you pay to view some of the AP’s content?
