Quality second? Online video with speed or love?

Oct 12, 2016 at 03:41 pm by Staff


Going live online with a video news story in 180 seconds - and doing it 100 times a day - may sound ambitious, but a target for which Expressen TV in Sweden works hard.

Head of Expressen TV Bella Levy says "breaking news is our focus, and we aim for around 100 video clips a day with quality coming second to the news value.

"Our target is 100 top news stories and all have video clips, everybody in the newsroom has to contribute videos when working on a story, from covering the conflict in Syria to the most local of stories," she says.

"Our total reach is 2.1 billion visits a day and the hundreds of screens around our building and its new studios tell us what ours readers want from us.
"What we want is to be is the first source for breaking news - TV increases traffic and we are just getting started. Our Expressen newspaper is 72 years old and we like to think we are leading the world with online video, not following the traffic."

However at Politikens Lokalaviser in Denmark, video is seen "as a qualifier rather than a differentiator", according to digital director Steffen Damborg.

"Video enriches the core story, rather than being the story," he says. "It is not an isolated business model for small markets like Denmark."

Cut to the BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 29 different languages "but is still delivering journalism, just in a different format," according to BBC UK digital consultant Esra Dogramaci (pictured with moderator Robb Montgomery).

"Audience is at the heart of everything we do, and we are always experimenting with video, and other compelling content forms across our departments," she says.

"It's not TV, and we need to have people on our team who live and breathe social."

She says traffic will be 80 per cent internet by 2019, up from 64 per cent in 2014, and adds that social media is "not just a way of sending traffic to our websites.

"You need to skip the obvious and work out what your audience wants. It is not enough just to publish your videos; you have to give them love, to engage your audience and have them give you loyalty."

Dogramaci says the BBC is "always experimenting", and holds "creative Fridays" to try new things out.

Maggie Coleman


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