Inside the AP’s battle with its members

Don Day February 17th, 2008

Forbes has a great in-depth look at the battle brewing between the Associated Press and its newspaper members. It covers a lot of ground we’ve already talked about - but also focuses on the collectives changing revenue picture.

For decades, the newspaper industry accounted for the lion’s share of AP’s revenue. But during the 1990s, the news agency branched out into lucrative new lines of business, including broadcast video and online initiatives, making it less reliant on revenue from print outlets.

Newspapers only account for 30% of total revenue. Broadcast clients make up 37%, and online ventures bring in 15%. While the newspaper members are struggling - the AP clearly is not:

In 2006, the most recent year that financial data are available, AP posted net income of $13.3 million, down from $18.5 million in 2005, on revenue of $679.8 million, up from $654.2 million. For comparison’s sake, back in 1990 before AP got into broadcast video or Internet ventures, the cooperative posted net income of $7.4 million on revenue of $311.9 million.