Associated Press Makes a New Offer to member papers

The New York Times reported that The Associated Press announced that it will offer new price discounts to newspapers and remove restrictions on the articles they receive, in response to newspapers’ frustration and the news that some of them might leave the cooperative.

With their own finances growing steadily worse, many newspapers have complained about the prices charged by the A.P., a non-profit corporation owned by the more than 1,400 American newspapers that are its members.

After holding prices flat for two years, the A.P. proposed a price structure that it said would save members an average of 10 percent next year. That system offered members a basic package of written material or, for a higher price, access to all A.P. articles.

On Thursday, the A.P. board of directors, meeting in New York, decided to give the broader package to all members at the lower price. A small number of papers would have had a price increase under the new system, and the board voted to hold their rates flat, instead.

The company said the changes would raise the aggregate savings to newspapers from $21 million a year under the previous plan, to $30 million.

The board will also consider whether to change a policy that some newspapers have protested, which requires them to give two years’ notice of their intent to drop the service.

“We fully understand the pain and the challenges of our members, and we have worked to address these concerns,” Tom Curley, president and chief executive officer of the A.P., said in a statement.

Last week, the Tribune Company, publisher of The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and several other large papers, and the Columbus Dispatch gave notice to the A.P. that they would drop the service. Until then, only a handful of papers had taken that step this year, and most of those were small.

It is not clear whether the changes announced on Thursday will placate the newspapers that have rebelled against the wire service.

Some object to changes in the A.P.’s news coverage. Others have protested a requirement that, to receive the full discounts planned for next year, they must participate in a program that they contend could set the A.P. up as an economic competitor, an argument the company says is misguided.

And still others say that the price reductions proposed by the A.P. are not nearly steep enough.

Source: NYT