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AP Says Its Time To Charge Partners For Online Content
from the and-so-it-goes... dept
This probably doesn't come as a shock to many, but at its annual meeting today, the Associated Press announced that it would begin charging newspapers and broadcasters to post its content online starting in 2006. Currently, licensees of AP content are allowed take content they've licensed for print and repurpose it for online at no additional charge. Clearly, the AP is trying to evolve itself to meet the shifting media consumption of the average user, from trying to charge Google News for AP content to offering charging several different versions of an AP story. With its new "eAP" platform, licensees will be able to access news via a searchable database, complete with tags. However, the question remains, will the current licensees see the benefit to paying for the same exact commodity content? The Associated Press is making the bet that online is now part of its affiliates' long term strategy. Feeling the pinch in their classified and advertising revenues, newspapers are scrambling to invest in the web. The AP realizes that it has been giving away too much for too little. Couple with the fact that the AP is starting to build its own online presence, and the AP can hope for two endgame scenarios. Scenario one is that the affiliates find an adequate return in licensing AP content; in this case, the AP is able to extend its current model to the online medium. Scenario two is that most licensees cannot justify paying for the commodity content, and only a few larger trafficked sites decide to take on the expense. In that case, the AP has its own ad-supported news site, which could end up being the one main source for AP content -- but it could also lose out on content from members who are upset at the higher fees. Either way, we're witnessing the latest experiment in how the traditional press makes its way into the internet world.
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The Socialist Advantage?
State-owned news services in other countries like BBC and NHK provide video clips for free, and the quality of journalism is higher than most private-sector news agencies in their respective countries. In the era of free content, maybe news should be a responsibility of the government.
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Doesn't that scare you?
Goverment controlled media, the very thought invokes fear.
I have always considered the media as a watchdog for goverment. If the goverment controlled the media what type of filter would they use, would they report incedents that can be constrused as negative (failure in properly appriating funding, corruption and so forth).
I fear the day in which the goverment would need to take on the responsibility of the news.
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As opposed to private media, which is owned by corporate interests, therefore refuses to cover any news that might embarrass its sponsors? The purpose of privatized media is to make money, not to report the truth. It will provide news that audiences want to hear. Last I heard, Britons are not robots that believe whatever the BBC tells them. The NHK in Japan often provides news that feels more objective than the privatized outlets, with their rightist or leftist views.
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I'm going to have to agree with Dorpus on this one. While I do very much fear government controlled media and feel it would be a poor direction to go, corporate media is practically no media at all.
True media is independent of any outside influence beyond the truth. While that may be a pipe dream, neither corporation nor government is offering anything close to it. Citizen journalists/bloggers may be the closest thing we have to true media at the moment. Corporate based media doesn't even deserve the name; it should be renamed to corporate public relations.
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