Page "United Press International" Paragraph 24

Rival AP was a publishers ' cooperative and could assess its members to help pay the extraordinary costs of covering major news — wars, the Olympic Games, national political conventions.

UPI clients, in contrast, paid a fixed annual rate ; depending on individual contracts, UPI could not always ask them to help shoulder the extraordinary coverage costs.

In its heyday, newspapers typically paid UPI about half what they paid AP in the same cities for the same services: At one point, for example, the Chicago Sun-Times paid AP $ 12, 500 a week, but UPI only $ 5, 000 ; the Wall Street Journal paid AP $ 36, 000 a week, but UPI only $ 19, 300.

The AP, which serviced 1, 243 newspapers at the time, remained UPI's main competitor.

In 1959, UPI had 6, 208 clients in 92 countries and territories, 234 news and picture bureaus, and an annual payroll of $ 34, 000, 000, ($) in today's dollars.