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This could be a pretty big deal: Beet.tv is reporting an exclusive — that Microsoft has signed a deal with Associated Press, the giant wire service, to “develop an online video platform for thousands of U.S. newspapers, television and radio stations to upload, publish and monetize locally-created video.” 

The Beet report says that the system is in trial with about 30 newspaper publishers and broadcasters including The Miami Herald, the Houston Chronicle and the Rocky Mountain News, and the program is expected to go live in about a month. This is reportedly an extension of the Online Video Network, which the software company and the wire service set up about a year ago to distribute Associated Press video to about 1,600 member websites (including the Globe and Mail, where I work).

The new system is aimed at the 7,000 newspapers, TV and radio stations that belong to AP, who will be able to create their own content locally — either by staff or through user-generated content initiatives — and then upload it and generate revenue from it. Beet.tv says that for the 1,000 TV stations that belong to AP, “the opportunity to publish and monetize video is immediate.”

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