Jul 08 2007
The BBC & Value Added Video
Finally a major news organization rejects the “online video is the future of news” mantra/hysteria 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 News Conference Clifton announced that we should expect less online video from the BBC.
The move away from quantity will allow the BBC to concentrate on quality and relevance, and resist the temptation to use every scrap of video they can conjure:
“What irritates the hell out of people is if they click a story which says ‘Britain buys 100 new tanks for the war in Afghanistan’ they then click on the video and it’s just a bloke standing in Whitehall saying ‘they’re going to buy 100 new tanks for the war in Afghanistan’. The viewer could say ‘you’ve wasted my time”.
The BBC offered at an ONA meet-up last week. So the BBC is realising that online video is very different to video for TV bulletins.