Description
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th century. At its peak, it had more than 6,000 media subscribers. Since the first of several sales and staff cutbacks in 1982, and the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its main U.S. rival, the Associated Press, UPI has concentrated on smaller information-market niches.
Key UP/UPI product and technical innovation dates
- In 1908, UP began offering feature stories and using reporter bylines.
- In 1915, UP begins to use teleprinters, more recently known as Teletype machines.
- In the 1930s and 1940s, UP Newspictures predecessor agency Acme developed the International Unifax machine, the first automatic picture receiver.
- The "Ocean Press", a news service for ocean liners, was founded in the 1930s, as a corporate subsidiary of Scripps. It used copy from United Press and later United Press International. By 1959, it had 125 subscriber ships.
- In 1935, UP was the first major news service to offer news to broadcasters.
- In 1945, UP offered the first all-sports wire.
- In 1948, UP started the first international television news film service. Originally named "UP Movietone", in view of a partnership with the Movietone News service of 20th Century Fox, it went through several partnerships and name changes and was known as United Press International Television News or simply as UPITN, a name which also credited UPI's film and video service partner at the time, Britain's ITN television news service.
- In 1951, UP offered the first teletypesetter (TTS) service, enabling newspapers to automatically set and justify type from wire transmissions.
- In 1952 UP, absorbed the Scripps-owned Acme photo service to form UP Newspictures
- In 1958 United Press absorbed Hearst's INS to create UPI
- In 1958, UPI created the first wire service audio network, an offshoot of the film service above. UPI Audio provided news material to radio stations. It was renamed United Press International Radio Network in 1983.
- In 1974, UPI launched the first "high-speed" data newswire—operating at 1,200 WPM.
- In 1978, UPI launched the first cable TV news network, UPI Newstime, using SSTV technology via satellite to relay the channel to cable TV companies nationwide in the USA.
- In 1979, UPI along with Telecomputing Corp. of America began making the UPI world news report available to owners of home computers.
- In 1982, UPI pioneered a coding system allowing clients to choose stories based on topic, subtopic and location.
