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Lisa Davies: ‘Without the AAP, regional media wouldn’t be in crisis, it wouldn’t exist’

CEO of the Australian Associated Press (AAP), Lisa Davies has said regional media in Australia is currently in a state of crisis, and has been for several years, yet remains buoyed by the existence of the newswire service.

“Without the AAP, I would say that regional media would not be in crisis, it would not exist,” said Davies speaking on this week’s Mumbrellacast.

Davies spoke about her time at the AAP so far on this week’s Mumbrellacast

“It’s really impossible for regional outlets to in any way survive without the services that we provide, because of course we do the state and national news that supports them and their resources to do the stuff that makes their communities want to pick up that newspaper or listen to that radio station or subscribe to their website.”

“It’s that underpinning of the media ecosystem that allows media diversity and allows those voices to flourish. That was true two years ago, and it’s even truer today I would say.”

Davies said that following the birth of “AAP 2.0”, the newswire retained “97 or 98% of our clients”, outside of Nine and News Corp, “and the ones we did lose were more to unfortunately the COVID pandemic and things”, but that the AAP continues to be extremely important through regional Australia, reaching millions of Australians through these outlets.

“So it’s pretty vital we stick around.”

Last week, Davies secured a six month trial with Nine’s publishing arm (Davies’ former employer), two years after the media company opted to – along with co-majority shareholder News Corp – close the newswire service.

Nine’s managing director of publishing, James Chessell told Mumbrella the six-month trial would give the newsrooms the opportunity to evaluate how AAP content might fit with its subscriber and audience strategies.

Catch the full conversation with Davies on this week’s Mumbrellacast, available now below or on your favourite podcast app.

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