Successful Splice

Last year, when the United Press absorbed Hearst's ailing International News Service, the combination made sense all round. Long second fiddle to the bigger Associated Press, U.P. picked up 213 new clients from I.N.S., eventually took on 200 of I.N.S.'s 550-odd staff. I.N.S., which had been losing $3,000,000 a year, got a 15% cut of a moneymaker. Last week, making its first progress report, United Press International produced strong evidence of a successful splice. Items:

P:In the 17 months since the union, U.P.I. has gained 557 new clients, raising its total to 5,772 v. about 7,100 for A.P.

P:U.P.I. has added eleven new bureaus, including Anchorage, Budapest, Warsaw and Rabat, and extended service overseas from 71 to 85 countries.

P:U.P.I. has boosted its income from $28.5 million in 1958 to a current rate of $32.5 million.

While U.P.I. is operating in the black, its profit margin is still slender because of heavy investments in new equipment. Example: for its old overlapping news-wire network, which left 16 hours each day covered by a single wire, U.P.I. in September switched to a new system with two wires going 24 hours a day. But it is in the business of covering the news fast and competently that U.P.I. has made its greatest advances. Still smarting from A.P.'s 19-hour beat on the U.P.-I.N.S. merger story, U.P.I. in recent months has scored some notable firsts on its own. Basing its story on information from its Moscow correspondent, U.P.I. carried the substance of Nikita Khrushchev's United Nations disarmament speech 50 minutes before the opposition; last August U.P.I. moved on-the-scene pictures of the Montana earthquake more than two hours before A.P. transmitted old file photos of the earthquake locale.

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