AP sells Dutch language news service to Novum

(flickr: /ivan)
*A whole new outlook*

My, my, my:

The Associated Press has sold its Dutch language news service (created in 1945) to Novum, (created in 1999) a press agency that is attempting to challenge the dominant ANP, or "General Netherlands Press Bureau" on the Dutch market.

"Under the terms of the deal, Novum will acquire the AP's Dutch news service and its staff, continuing to translate AP's international report for Dutch newspapers, Web sites and commercial clients. Novum will also become sales agent for the AP's English-language news and photo service in the Netherlands."

-AP story on the deal.

Want to know what I think about this?

NO COMMENT.

Sorry about that. Rules is rules.



The rest of the AP story:

"We're delighted with this exciting new partnership which will create a dynamic new service in the Dutch language," said Barry Renfrew, AP's vice president of Global Business for Europe, Middle East and Africa. "We are confident that the combination of AP's unmatched global coverage and Novum's strong local reporting will provide an excellent service for Dutch clients."
"I appreciate the trust that AP is placing in Novum in agreeing to allow us to continue the tradition of the Dutch service on its behalf," said Bram Bloemberg, managing director of the privately owned Novum, which was founded in 1999. "This gives us a stronger position in the Dutch market, which is a valuable development for both sides."
The agreement is to take immediate effect, and there will be no interruption in service to clients. Commercial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The Associated Press is a global news network, delivering news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the world's largest source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world's population sees news from AP.
The AP operates as a not-for-profit cooperative owned by its 1,500 U.S. daily newspaper members.
The AP's Dutch service began immediately after World War II when AP staffers in Holland received AP international news dispatches by Morse code from London, translated them _ often by candlelight in a city still short of power _ and delivered carbons of the report by bicycle to subscribers in Amsterdam.
In the decades since, the AP Dutch Service established a strong position in the Dutch media market.
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Google and the Associated Press

Holy Guacamole!

Google is going to host stories from the AP directly on its own site!

This is huge news from my perspective, and newspapers may view this deal as the fourth horseman of the apocalypse.

Though hardly anybody knows it, AP is a not-for-profit organization, funded by member subscriptions. In other words, it acts as the "pool" for many of the world's newspapers (and websites).

Now an elephant has jumped into the pool (AP story):

"Although the change might not even be noticed by many Google users, the decision to corral the content from the AP and other news services may irritate publishers and broadcasters if the move results in less traffic for them and more for (the) Internet's most powerful company.

Translation: if the users don't click through to the newspaper's site, the papers are cut out of the online advertising loop. Even though they're the ones "funding" the pool. Google is obviously going to be paying $$ for the news now too (no inside knowledge here, just common sense), but they are almost certain to get all the eyeballs.

A diminished audience would likely translate into less online revenue, compounding the financial headaches of long-established media already scrambling to make up for the money that has been lost as more advertisers shift their spending to the Internet.

Several other major Web sites, including Yahoo, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, have been featuring AP material for years within their sites. Google has an even larger potential audience because its search engine handles more than half of the online search requests in the United States.

However, despite Google's dominance in search, its news section lags behind the industry leaders. In July, Google News attracted 9.6 million visitors, trailing Yahoo News (33.8 million visitors), MSNBC (24.5 million), AOL News (23.9 million) and CNN (22.5 million), according to comScore Media Metrix."

-AP

Translation:

Google is about to open up ANOTHER can of whup-ass on all other media companies, new and old.

On the bright side, this should make finding permanently valid links to my own stories a little easier. I'll be dis-inter-media-ting the newspapers' sites.

Funny enough, I couldn't find AP's story on this deal on Google's news site. It's here on the AP's own site and in a fair number of papers, but not on Google's news site.

I think it was in "Office Space" that they explained the theory of why it is best to lay off workers on a Friday.

I bring it up because this feels like a layoff notice for a lot of good reporters working at newspapers...

My visual summary of how this deal is likely to be interpreted by AP's regular newspaper subscribers:


As a final observation, I notice the NYT took Reuters on this story, rather than AP. Well, one wouldn't want to appear biased.
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