Good news for editors looking to fill up their paper: AP stories are about to get cheaper.

A new pricing model will charge based on news type, instead of the size of the piece, and will go into effect in January of 2009. The AP estimates that the changes will save papers money, but lead to $6 million to $7 million in revenue loss for the wire service. The company hopes to make that up through video and online sales.

Of course, if they’re wrong, Seth Sutel, the AP reporter who wrote the story, may have just covered his own imminent downsizing.