Press Releases

12/08/2009

AP sells German-language service to DDP

BERLIN (AP) — The Associated Press has sold its German-language news service to the German news agency DDP, the organizations announced Tuesday.

Under the agreement, DDP is buying the service that has provided German-language news to AP's German-speaking customers since 1947. The companies agreed that DDP will translate and distribute AP's international news inside Germany and AP will be able to use DDP's local news from Germany for customers around the world for 15 years.

Financial terms were not disclosed. The AP is a not-for-profit cooperative owned by U.S. newspapers, while DDP is privately held.

"DDP and the German language service of AP will form a strong group, combining the famous AP high quality news from around the world with the DDP in-depth coverage in Germany," said Peter Loew, co-owner of DDP.

"This new arrangement is consistent with AP's core mission to deliver authoritative breaking news from around the world," Tom Brettingen, AP senior vice president and chief revenue officer, said in a statement.

"As part of its leadership role in the digital transformation of media, AP is focusing on building strong partnerships with local news agencies and ensuring that all content providers are protected against misappropriation and receive fair value for the use of their content wherever news is consumed — on the Web, mobile and other emerging platforms," the statement said.

The German-language service that DDP is buying is based in Frankfurt, with offices in Berlin and other German cities. It is Germany's second-largest news agency after DPA, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, and provides local text and photo coverage plus international news from AP translated into German for scores of media outlets in Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria.

DDP said the service, including 114 employees, will now become DDP International.

In an interview with newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday, Loew was quoted as saying that "our strategy is to make DPA expendable," a reference to the fierce competition in Germany among news agencies.

AP will continue to maintain a strong presence in the region, with 40 editorial staffers covering Germany, Switzerland and Austria in text, photos and video for its international customers, said John Daniszewski, senior managing editor for international news and photos.

DDP, or Deutscher Depeschendienst GmbH, currently offers economic and political news and images to customers in print, radio and television and other non-media customers. It is a subsidiary of DDP Media Holding AG, which was taken over in January by Loew and Martin Vorderwuelbecke, Munich media investors. Besides the news agency, DDP Media Holding also owns a photo agency and other media properties.

DDP said its network produces about 600 news stories in different formats and approximately 400 images every day.

The AP, founded in 1846 and headquartered in New York, is the world's oldest and largest news organization, with more than 240 bureaus in some 100 countries around the world. Stories, photos, video and online content from AP reaches more than half of the globe's population on any given day.

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On the Net:

http://www.ap.org

http://www.ddp.de