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Eric Meyer (meyer@newslink.org) posted to this list:
>Vin: Need I remind you that AP is a member-owned group? 

No need, I'm a member (I co-own the daily in Willimantic, Conn., an AP 
paper).

>Do you really think it will sit still for allowing a handful of
>non-member subscribers to use AP resources to compete with AP members? 

It has for more 20 years. AP pioneered this area, beginning with its 
CompuServe contract in the mid-1970s. I wouldn't characterize it as sitting 
still; AP has avidly pursued non-traditional media revenues. Its membership 
has supported the pursuit, for the reasons I outlined yesterday, the main 
reason being such new revenue minimizes hikes in AP's newspaper rates.

Of course, online wasn't at all competitive with newspapers for most of the 
past 20 years. A few years ago, when major newspapers began voicing concerns 
about competition from online services, AP reiterated its policy of never 
selling its comprehesive international and national DataStream wires nor 
its state and regional wires to any online service. (The AP Online service 
sold to CompuServe and others is a trickle compared to the AP DataStream 
which newspapers receive. The sole exception to the state and regional wires 
policy has been Clarinet).

That AP policy played an ironic note recently when newspapers created their 
own online editions and wanted to use the DataStream already being delivered 
into their newspaper computers. Conversations went like this:
  'We'd like AP's for permission to deliver DataStream online.'
  'No, that would hurt the local newspaper,' AP replied.
  'But we ARE the local newspaper,' etc.
AP eventually worked out various deals with member newspapers to deliver 
components of DataStream and the state and regional wires online. There were 
a few gaffes (according to a friend within AP, Lou Boccardi went 'ballistic' 
when he discovered users of one online service could access full DataStream 
through a 'backdoor' in an online newspaper hosted by that service).

I can't speak for AP and I ask that the AP staffers on this list chime in an 
correct me if what I say is wrong. Wht little I know is as an AP member; an 
executive who formerly competed against AP by selling the UPI and Reuters 
wires to newspapers, online services, and online newspapers; and the former 
director of the online newspaper campaign at an online service owned by a 
major publisher, which was solicited to buy the AP online services. As best I 
hear, AP's new media policy is this:

AP will continue selling the AP Online service to non-members but permit 
member newspapers online to utilize parts, if not all, of full DataStream and 
the state and regional wires. This would give entities such as the New 
Century Network an advantage in wires against CompuServe, Prodigy, et. al. AP 
wants to keep its online membership comparitively competitive online, while 
it continues pursuing online non-member revenues.

--------------------------------------------------------
Vin Crosbie                          voice(212) 207-9290
ProductView Interactive, Inc.         fax (212) 207-9295
One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza           vin@productview.com
New York, NY 10017                   
--------------------------------------------------------



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