Publishers ponder a video-first future

Newspapers may have built their success on the printed word, but there is a clear future embracing video

The move towards video – both commercial and editorial – in the publishing world is already an easy trend to spot; last September, News Corp bought the video adtech company Unruly Media for £114m to improve its digital video offering for advertisers, and earlier this year announced it is to invest millions more in original video content across its title portfolio in a “major commitment to the medium”.

Meanwhile, DMGT, publisher of the Daily Mail, MailOnline and Metro, stated that it is adapting to what it sees as an increased appetite for video content.

In its 2015 operating business review, the publisher states the MailOnline’s strategy is to invest in technology to harness growth opportunities in video consumption.

“Investment in video content is also being made to complement top stories and produce video-led stories as a driver of traffic and audience,” it states. “Advertising initiatives specifically designed for mobile application have been launched to capture new revenue streams.”

To delve deeper into this subject, this year’s Future of Newsbrands conference saw panellists from both the editorial and sales side of the business, as well as media agency execs, look at the opportunities and challenges of embracing video.

The views are mixed.

“I think the perceived popularity of video viewing for newsbrands at the moment is wishful thinking,” said Dmitry Shishkin, digital editor, BBC World Service. “The numbers just aren’t really there. People do still read text and I see the video audience as a very specific segment.”

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Indeed, a recent report produced for Reuters revealed that website users in particular remain resistant to online video news with only around 2.5% of average visit time spent on video pages in a range of 30 online news sites; 97.5% of time is still spent with text.

It is very different when social media is added into the picture, however.

Many publishers interviewed by Reuters said that the majority of their video is now consumed through Facebook and other platforms, with some videos recording between 75 and 100 million views, “far beyond” what they could achieve on their own platforms.

Experts agree that the dominance of Facebook is certainly driving publishers towards video, but not everyone is convinced they should follow.

“Is video the future for newsbrands? I think the question has to be: is Facebook the future of news?” said Jon Cornwell, co-founder and CEO, Newsflare.

“If the answer is yes, they have a video-first strategy and you saw what happened when they went mobile-first. So yes, I’d argue the future is video.”

However, News UK’s creative content director, Tiffanie Darke – who has just launched a video content unit at News UK – said the industry should be cautious about diving in without considering the bigger picture.

“God forbid, we should all be consuming content in the Facebook way,” she said.

“When we go to Facebook and say we want to do some video [for an advertising client], they say, ‘well, it has to grab you attention in the first two seconds.’ I mean, imagine if all content had to work like that? All considered and long-form content would be over.”

Darke said the most effective way of putting some content together for a brand working with News UK was to put all available platforms together.

“So something that has a bit of video, a bit of social media, and bit of print, perhaps. It’s not just about choosing one channel.”

Claire Elsworth, content and partnerships director at Initiative agrees, adding: “Video is not the only channel, despite what Facebook might think. We can’t lose all we’ve learned about other channels and what we’ve come to love about them.”

In terms of news editorial, the Times and Sunday Times still firmly remain text-based and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change. However, if video is embedded into copy, people engage with it, Darke said. “But only if it’s relevant.”

However, City A.M.’s chief operating officer, Charles Yardley, said that although his title is only just developing its video strategy, he thinks it “quite feasible” that in five years’ time, newsrooms could be “all video or all image driven”.

This, he believes, will be part of the evolution of a news business model for journalism, which he said was “fundamentally broken.”

“The economics of funding journalism don’t work anymore,” he said. “We’re talking about a century-old process.”

Meanwhile, some working on the commercial side of the publishing business say they have seen some good results deploying video.

Scott Deutrom, chief digital revenue officer, ESI Media, publisher of the Independent and London Evening Standard, said he can monetise video “quite easily”.

“It adds more reach and frequency,” he said. “We could treble what we do and still sell it.”

Whether other publishers can do the same and maintain the growth remains to be seen, but it’s clear newsbrands are willing to experiment.

(This reporter’s view, having just typed out 800+ words, is that text is here to stay – but we did do a nice video interview with Tiffanie Darke to complement our coverage of the event).