'Daily News' Signs Up Sports Outlet To Replace Some AP Content

By: Joe Strupp The New York Daily News, which recently revealed a move to terminate its membership with the Associated Press in a dispute over membership terms, has filled some of the void with a Connecticut-based sports outlet.

PA Sports Ticker, which has been owned in the past by the likes of ESPN and Dow Jones, has been providing at least two pages per day of sports agate to the Daily News, according to the paper. "We are using them for certain agate information, including box scores," said Jennifer Mauer, a Daily News spokeswoman, who did not indicate how recently the usage had begun. "We are still getting some AP [sports] stuff as well. We are going to see how it goes and we may consider expanding it further."

Jay Imus, PA Sports Ticker director of sales, confirmed that the Daily News had signed on to utilize sports agate. "We are supplying them content," Imus said.

The use of Sports Ticker follows recent revelations that the Daily News had informed AP a year ago that it wished to terminate its membership. AP policy requires members to give two years' notice before membership can end. A Daily News official has told E&P that the two-year requirement is one of the reasons the paper sought to pull out.

AP spokesman Paul Colford said he had not heard of PA Sports Ticker, but he said in a statement: "The Associated Press has always been one of the Daily News' sports agate providers and the Associated Press continues to be one of the Daily News' sports agate providers. We value our ongoing relationship with the paper."

The change also comes as two groups of newspaper editors have spoken out in opposition to a new AP rate structure set to take effect in 2009. The new approach would expand breaking news offerings in the core service, while placing some other content on an a la carte system.

The newspaper editors protesting have said the new structure does not cut rates enough at a time when newspapers are facing budget restraints and revenue declines. AP officials have said they face their own economic realities, including investing millions in digital technology to better serve clients.

AP has also said that the new rate structure would save more than $6 million for member newspapers, with most seeing no overall rate increase.

Several of the protesting editors have mentioned PA Sport Ticker as an alternative to AP sports agate that they have considered. Imus said he has gotten inquiries from numerous newspapers in recent months, but would not name them.

"We are seeing a trend," Imus claimed. "We have demonstrated we are as equally reliable and some are finding we are easier to work with."

Imus noted that his service last year signed up CanWest Group, a chain of 11 dailies in Canada that includes The National Post and the Ottawa Citizen. He said they had mentioned seeking an alternative to CP, AP's Canadian arm. "That was definitely part of the sales pitch," Imus said. "Lessening the dependency on AP."

Gerry Nott, editor-in-chief of CanWest News Service, which supplies content to all 11 papers, confirmed the move. "We were severing our relationship with CP/AP in June 2007," Nott said about the switch. "We needed to get an American sports content provider."