Tuesday, April 19, 2005

The Associated Press (AP) announced yesterday that it will charge its members for online content, starting on January 1, 2006. The decision occurred at its annual board meeting.

Until the new pricing arrangement takes place, news sites that purchase AP content for their print editions have been able to use the same content on their websites at no additional charge. No pricing scheme has been announced, but the AP did say that it would increase its fees less than usual this year to ease the transition.

Burl Osborne, the chairman of the AP’s board, stated that since the creation of the internet, the “AP’s philosophy was to promote member efforts to develop this new medium, and to give those fledgling online efforts time to grow.”

The price increase was not the only plan mentioned at the meeting. According to an AP report in the New York Times, “The AP also plans to introduce a new multimedia package designed to appeal to young adults, a prized advertising demographic deeply immersed in the Internet and other digital media.”