Quality, not quantity, & good positioning

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Melissa Worden

Pete Clifton, the head of BBC News Interactive, announced that he wants to see two major changes with their online video: 1.) It should complement stories, rather than repeat streamed TV or an accompanying text story, and 2.) it should be embedded.

“Instead of putting up hundreds of pieces of video every week, is just to be more focused. We want to give [video] a higher profile so we can get to the point where we can embed them,” he said. “Once we are doing that, I don’t think we can afford to disappoint the audience. That’s not to say that stuff is badly made, it may just not necessarily complement the text that we have written and it may not just suit the platform that it’s on.”

So why are they so hot to embed their video?

In a trial run of it, they saw up to 40 percent of people watching, compared to 2 percent in a standalone player.

Wow. That’s a lot.

Comments

6 Responses to “Quality, not quantity, & good positioning”

Lucas Grindley on July 7th, 2007 9:56 am

He’s talking about what to do when video is attached to a story. Simply creating video versions text stories and then attaching them to the text is not as productive as attaching complementary footage from the scene, or an extended interview with a source.

But that’s not to say that having video versions of text stories is totally useless. For people who prefer to consume their news in video form, it is useful in that format. They’re not going to read the text.

I’m not predicting that’s a large audience. In truth, I have no idea how many people will ultimately choose to consume news via video instead of text. But I believe news should be presented across all formats so people can choose.

With all that said, I agree that newspaper Web sites should offer original/exclusive video and attach it to complementary stories.

And, I agree it should be embedded into the article.

The odd thing is why would you place related video above the story if it doesn’t make much sense without first reading the story?
Lucas Grindley's blog | Exploring the new way for journalism on July 7th, 2007 10:37 am

To embed or not to embed, that’s not the real question…

If you’re looking to increase video plays, Melissa Worden points out some valuable statistics provided by the head of BBC Interactive. Pete Clifton said that when video was embedded into the article page, up to 40 percent of people reading……
links for 2007-07-07 by andydickinson.net on July 7th, 2007 6:18 pm

[…] Quality, not quantity, & good positioning : the x degree Melissa Worden picks up on Pete Cliftons comments about video :”In a trial run of it, they saw up to 40 percent of people watching, compared to 2 percent in a standalone player.” I always said that channeling video off in a seperate player was a bad idea (tags: BBC video pete clifton) […]
Peter Ralph on July 8th, 2007 11:00 am

One point - the standalone players the BBC was using were QT and Real. The embedded video was Flash. Flash video has far higher penetration than QT or real - so it is probably not accurate to ascribe all the increase to “embed” vs “standalone”
The BBC & Value Added Video on July 8th, 2007 11:30 am

[…] for a more reasoned “online video is part of the future of news” approach. Melissa Worden links to an interview with Pete Clifton, head of BBC News Interactive. Speaking at the Future of […]
Alfred Hermida on July 8th, 2007 6:52 pm

Last week, I attended a briefing at the BBC News website where tech editor Darren Waters gave a behind the scenes look at the trial with embedded, on-demand video. The key point - video for the web is very different to video on TV.