Associated Press has challenges ahead, CEO says at global town meeting

The New York Times reports that The Associated Press chief executive Tom Curley spoke of the challenges facing the 157-year-old cooperative at its global town hall meeting this month. "'A.P. has got to develop licensing and revenue strategies tied to eyeballs as they shift to nontraditional outlets,'" Curley said. When Curley came aboard two years ago, his general charge was to "achieve growth through new products and world expansion." So far, he has boosted revenue and cut loss.

But some of the A.P.'s aggressive attempts to increase revenues have caused frustration in the news industry. For example, Michael Phillips, editorial director for E. W. Scripps and co-author of an OJR commentary about the A.P.'s decision to charge an additional fee for using its content online, said in an interview with the Times: "Charge us once, but it's not fair to charge us twice for news we're dealing with in two or three platforms. Our audience is spreading out over a variety of media, and we're simply following."

And later this year, The A.P. plans to launch "eAP," an online database system that will track client use of sound and video clips, news and photos. The A.P. employees' union is worried that the tracking system will be used to make decisions about staffing and whether bureaus stay open. Many top A.P. foreign bureau editors without union contracts have already left or been forced to retire, according to the Times, and the positions have not been filled.