"News on Board": dapd Supplies Content to Daimler AG Worldwide

BERLIN--(Marketwire - Jun 27, 2012) - The dapd Group has entered into a long-term contract with Daimler AG to supply them with news content. In the future, news and photographs from the fields of politics, the economy, sport and entertainment will be broadcast by dapd directly into Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Millions of vehicles across the globe will be equipped with the technology.

The subsidiary dapd International Service has signed bilateral contracts for the product "News on Board" with cooperation partners in 22 counties and offers 28 languages in total, including Czech, Korean and the Flemish dialect. In addition to AP, dapd partners include ANP (Netherlands), ANSA (Italy), RIA Novosti (Russia), PAP (Poland), Kyodo (Japan) and Yonhap (Korea). The Munich-based dapd subsidiary Airmotion is responsible for the technical implementation. Airmotion assesses the dapd exclusive content, sorts it, tailors it by means of a specially designed process, and then delivers it in digital form to Daimler. The service employs native speakers to perform continuous quality checks on the news content.

With COMAND Online, Mercedes-Benz vehicles have featured, since 2011, a multimedia system that allows Internet access and web-based services. The Mercedes-Benz apps currently on offer will now be expanded with the latest "News on Board" ticker reports, which consist of headlines, sub-headlines, detailed text and relevant pictures. According to the head of Daimler's electronics and telematics division Peter Häußermann, "A premium car manufacturer requires premium content in order to provide its customers with an up to date global news service." Häußermann added further that "Daimler is looking forward to working with the international news agency dapd as it is the only agency which satisfied the exacting criteria we have for our news app."

"It is not only publishing and media houses that have to tackle the challenge of harnessing digital and mobile news services to develop new business opportunities. News agencies must do this too," says Dr. Martin Vorderwülbecke, CEO of dapd media holding AG. "Our collaboration with the multinational corporation Daimler AG shows that it is important to pursue new international directions in view of the dramatic upheavals in the media market." In the future, the new service "News on Board" will be made available to other automotive companies and industry customers.

About dapd media holding:
The dapd media holding AG is an independent international news agency group with headquarters in Berlin and Munich. The leading German agencies dapd, ddp images, Picture Press, Airmotion and ddpdirect are among its subsidiaries. These supply around 700 clients with texts on current topics, as well as current and historical pictures. Its clients include a majority of German daily newspapers, numerous magazines, online media, television and radio broadcasters, political parties and governments. In July 2011 dapd media holding took over the French photo agency Sipa Press, founded in 1973, which delivers 6,000 pictures to clients in more than 40 countries. In April the new dapd subsidiary took over Diora News, a French online news agency.