NEW YORK -- asap is here.
The Associated Press has launched its younger audience service in a bid to attract the 18-to-34-year-old demographic group to AP's members and subscribers.
AP today began delivering online and print content to members and subscribers who have signed up for the premium service. asap content, which includes words, pictures, sounds, moving images, blogs and interactive features, is packaged for every format and designed to appeal to the next generation of news consumers that advertisers covet.
In 2004, asap was conceived in response to member concerns about the newspaper industry's ongoing effort to slow declining circulation in the United States. In 2005, AP's board of directors announced approval of AP's ambitious younger audience initiative at its annual meeting.
asap, pronounced "a-s-a-p," carries the connotation of "as soon as possible" and is a play on the initials "AP." The new multimedia premium product features original content in news, entertainment, lifestyles, money and gadgets, and sports for online, wireless, print and other use by AP's members and subscribers. The target: the 70 million 18-to-34-year-olds in the U.S.
The premium service's multimedia package is updated daily by Ted Anthony's asap team, based at AP's headquarters in New York and with offices in Denver and Los Angeles. The original content is produced exclusively for asap and is built on AP's standards of accuracy and its unmatched global sweep.
"With asap, people are going to be able to see world events in all their richness and texture in entirely new ways. Whether we're talking about hard news, entertainment or anything else on the planet, we're ready to show people what our journalists all over the world can do with the tools that this exciting format offers," Anthony said.
You can read more about Anthony at
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_050605a.html and details about the team's editorial leadership at http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_082305a.html
For more details about the service and where to see it, stay tuned to announcements on the asap Web page at http://www.ap.org/asap/
The Associated Press is the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing content to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world. Its multimedia services are distributed by satellite and the Internet to more than 120 nations.
contact: Jack Stokes, AP Corporate Communications, 212.621.1720.
