Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Report: Why Web videos are such a hot topic

Gannett filed its annual 10-K report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late last month. This post is one in a series highlighting passages from the document. 

Video remains a key growth opportunity for Gannett. In December 2011, Gannett’s total on-demand video plays, including BNQT Media Group, totaled 122 million, up over 380% year over year. The strong growth can be attributed to creating and licensing more video content, optimizing video players for mobile sites and search engines, and better promoting video via site redesigns. In 2012, Gannett will be opening a Video Production Center in Atlanta, housed with WXIA-TV, to curate, publish and distribute on-demand and live video content across Gannett and to/from third-parties. Other key areas of focus in 2012 will be increasing video content in the local markets through investment in technology and training, developing analytic capabilities and continuing to drive increased monetization.

Earlier: Corporate wants newspaper reporters producing more videos.

[Photo: A Contour helmet video camera like Michelle Pemberton used at The Indianapolis Star to produce a clever bulldog's eye view; $199 at Amazon]

7 comments:

  1. Video killed the print reporter star.

    ReplyDelete
  2. People don't have the patience to watch crappy video with even worse audio. And I can take a 15 second commercial, but every time the WashPost insists on 30 seconds, I bail.

    I will only watch a shaky, citizen-contributed type video if it's of significant breaking news (Japanese earthquake, for example). Otherwise, I have no use for pedestrian junk.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It takes a certain skill set to produce a good newspaper website video. Through no fault of their own, the vast majority of print reporters do not possess those skills.

    But corporate can't be bothered with this fact.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Agreed 11:23. Just as you don't hand everyone a camera and expect photojournalism quality. Just more stills and videos of cute animals to upload in lieu of news or skilled storytelling. Making the public dumber as journalists become obsolete.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I notice that at our site, top videos get about a tenth of the hits that top stories do.

    We seem to have a hit-or-miss approach to video. We really don't use it well, yet. Personally I rarely watch videos. Takes too long and there's not usually much in them of use.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Why are we putting up videos instead of slideshows? You only get one hit for videos but you get one hit for every photo in a slideshow. More bang for your buck in the slideshows. I'd think that would be the way to go.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Personally, videos are a waste of resources. Myself, if a news story is a video, I was abort it and google for a text version. I can read a hell of a lot faster than some talking head can tell me the news

    ReplyDelete

Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.