These days, wherever you look online, video is a prominent portion of major websites. From the Huffington Post to Politico, from the “Washington Post” to the “New York Times,” from Reuters to YouTube, video news segments are rapidly proliferating. This has caused consumers to seek out these sites in leu of local TV stations sites when reading their news.
Some argue live video adoption by print and online media exploded with the introduction of Apple’s iPad, the various e-readers, and other electronic tablets, all mobile wireless online device that lend themselves as well to video viewing as reading print.
“The Wall Street Journal” now produces about four hours of live programming each weekday, with plans for more hours this year. The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times are gearing up live video programs, while the New York Times itself has started running a morning business newscast.
Last week, The Huffington Post said that it would enter the video market this summer with 12 hours of live video each weekday. Reuters is publishing several video segments each day on YouTube and is occasionally going live on Reuters.com.
Video, the Times reported, represents a major new investment for print and online news organizations. The report said the news groups are seeking the high cost per thousand views that video ads attract, which it estimated to be $20 to $50 on average.
Video ad spending is expected to top $3 billion this year, up from $2.16 billion last year, reported eMarketer, the research firm. Video, it said, is by far the fastest-growing category of online ad spending.
These news organizations believe that over time the definition and the distribution of television will change, allowing a wider range of news programming to appear on both large and small screens. Already, some Internet-connected TV sets can stream live and on-demand video from the Wall Street Journal.
The Times, who also has owned television stations, reported that synergies between print and broadcast may have been imagined, but were never fully realized, when newspaper owners obtained licenses for television stations. Now, it said, the distinctions among media types are fading fast.
TV networks and local broadcasters, it predicted, will increasingly be competing with Internet networks for attention. For example, Reuters recently scored a coup with an interview with the investor George Soros, who said that for Wall Street “there isn’t all that much difference” between President Obama and Mitt Romney, save for “the crowd they bring with them.”
Soros’ comments were viewed about 20,000 times on YouTube, making it Reuters TV’s most-viewed video to date.
