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INTERVIEW-UPDATE 1-DDP agency set to buy AP German service

Published 09/25/2009, 11:37 AM
Updated 09/25/2009, 11:39 AM

* ddp co-owner says final details being worked out

* No financial details

* No job cuts planned

(Adds AP spokesman comment)

MUNICH, Sept 25 (Reuters) - German news agency ddp is poised to buy the German-language service of the Associated Press (AP) in an effort to win customers from rival domestic agency dpa, a co-owner of ddp told Reuters on Friday.

"We want to buy 100 percent (of the German service) and take over AP more or less as it is," Martin Vorderwuelbecke said in an interview, adding the partners needed only to clear up final details before signing a contract next month.

He gave no financial details for the purchase. A spokesman for AP in New York confirmed the talks and said there was no final agreement yet.

"The talks are about ddp taking a stake in AP Germany and a long-term agreement on the exchange of content," he said.

The ddp agency has a staff of 140 full-time journalists while AP has 80 journalists in Germany out of nearly 4,000 around the world. AP journalists writing in English for its international service will remain with the U.S. parent.

AP, a cooperative whose customers are mainly U.S. newspapers, has been cutting costs to help offset weakening demand from core clients hit by a plunge in advertising revenue.

AP has already sold its Dutch service and tried to sell its French service last year only to meet stiff resistance from local staff.

It competes with Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters Corp, as well as with ddp and dpa in the market for German-language news for media customers such as newspapers, broadcasters and online portals. (Reporting by Christian Kraemer and Peter Maushagen; Writing by Michael Shields; Editing by Knut Engelmann and David Holmes)

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