By Zachary M. Seward
Tom Curley, president and chief executive of The Associated Press, was in China last week for a government-sponsored media summit, where he compared digital content to NCAA basketball and explained the AP’s plans to build revenue online. But Curley was far more revealing when he spoke without a prepared text on October 6 at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong. I wrote about the big news from that talk on Friday but can now share the audio and transcript.
For all the criticism of Curley and the AP, he had a few really smart observations about the economics of news. Regarding the AP’s competition, which ranges from free news sites to CNN’s new wire service, he was realistic:
Our pricing has to be competitive. There are going to be more competitors. There are going to be fewer people who can afford us. This is a moment of tyranny in the marketplace. There are quality providers, and there are those who aren’t going to be able to sustain the revenues. We don’t expect to have the market share that we used to have.
Speaking broadly about the market for journalists and journalism, Curley was candid:
The truth is, again, the market for news is growing. But the reality is — and none of us can create some fantasy picture here — there is an oversupply, at least in the short term, of us. And so that is creating some differences in the market, and I see these being resolved by innovation and creativity over time.
Oh, there were silly remarks, too, like his misuse of the word “crowdsourcing” and his flat declaration that “we’re all done with random search.” (If that sounds like an ad for Bing, consider it another sign of a looming partnership between Microsoft and the AP.) Others will be interested in his explanation of how the AP will change the licenses for online distribution of its content.
Some comments that I reported on Friday aren’t contained in this recording, which covers Curley’s opening remarks and a question-and-answer session that followed. (Those additional comments are from a separate small-group chat with Curley after his speech, and my source has asked me not to post that audio.) You can download the audio, listen to it below, or read the transcript after the jump.
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Here’s the full transcript: Keep reading »
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