A month after Australian Associated Press 2.0 was launched as a not-for-profit company the 85-year-old newswire is under financial pressure and appealing to the public for monetary contributions.
AAP’s chief executive, Emma Cowdroy, has revealed some clients have signed for “much shorter periods” as they may be “testing the service and they also know there is a new entrant coming into the market”.
“It’s probably fair to say that things have been a lot tougher than we thought,” Cowdroy told Guardian Australia ahead of the launch of the AAP crowdfunding appeal.
“It’s been hard for our customers and we end up with downstream pressure from our clients’ business.”
The new entrant referred to by Cowdry is News Corp Australia’s inhouse newswire, NCA NewsWire, which will be offered to non-Murdoch outlets once its non-compete clause ends in five months. AAP was previously owned by News Corp and Nine Entertainment.
Cowdroy said the speed of News Corp’s “well-funded” move “threatens AAP’s unique role supplying independent content”.
If some AAP customers, like Seven West Media and Antony Catalano’s Australian Community Media, were to sign up for NCA NewsWire next year, AAP’s revenue stream from the smaller media companies would be insufficient for it to stay afloat.
There are questions about media diversity at play. If NCA NewsWire was to supply media outlets outside its own stable, the reach of Rupert Murdoch’s influence would be far wider than the 70% of newspaper circulation he already controls in Australia.
The formal sale of AAP has taken place. Read more in our Back Story article.https://t.co/TRXxmDPOxs
— AAP Newswire (@AAPNewswire) August 4, 2020
Publishers that rely on AAP include ARN’s KIIS Pure Gold and the Edge networks and news websites the New Daily and Guardian Australia, as well as ABC and SBS.
Cowdroy ruefully described it as “an exciting time in the news industry”. More than 1,000 media jobs have been lost this year alone, with major cuts hitting the workforces at News Corp, the ABC and Foxtel.
According to the Australian Newsroom Mapping Project, from the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, there have been 138 media “contractions”, or closures of newsrooms, print editions or news bulletins, since the start of 2019. Regional Australia has been especially hard hit with News Corp axing 100 print editions of community papers.
“Even in the short time since the sale [of AAP] settled, there have been challenges in the media landscape,” she said.
Cowdroy said it was always the intention to do some crowdsourcing of funds to supplement the philanthropic support the new AAP is receiving.
The newswire has applied for funds from the $50m Public Interest News Gathering (Ping) fund established by the government to support regional newsrooms but to date has not heard the outcome. AAP was ineligible prior to the sale.
On 4 August a slimmed-down AAP began its new life after it was saved at the 11th hour by a team of 35 investors and philanthropists after major shareholders News Corp Australia and Nine Entertainment pulled out and it was slated to close.
Today is the start of a new era for @AAPNewswire. Good luck to everyone at AAP 2.0 but we also extend our best wishes to those who have left the organisation. #MEAAmedia https://t.co/skNFtKXX3C
— MEAA (@withMEAA) August 4, 2020
The new management, led by the former News Corp chief executive Peter Tonagh, shed half of its staff but is still offering 250 politics, courts, crime and sport stories a day and photographs which are relied on by smaller publishers, broadcasters and radio stations around the country.
But without the support of News Corp and Nine, the AAP newswire is struggling to raise enough revenue from the remaining customers to remain viable. “There have been revenue hits and the emergence of competition in the national newswire space, after 85 years of a single provider,” Cowdroy said.
As well as the newswire the new owners continue to operate AAP’s FactCheck service, but Medianet, Mediaverse, AAP Directories, Pagemasters and the racing operations have been hived off.
“As our media customers struggle in the toughest advertising market in modern history and as the government struggles to find a way to support media competition and diversity, we are reaching out to all Australians for their help,” Cowdroy said.
“Of course, crowdfunding will only ever be one part of our income but we are prepared to try many things to get us through this tumultuous time.
“We want to diversify our revenue base as much as possible so we have a sustainable future. When you support AAP, you help protect an essential building block of media diversity.”
