I've looked at the different ways traditional news broadcasters are using internet TV at the moment.
Firstly I looked at ITV, on www.itv.com/news .
(nb. I first checked it out for the purposes of this presentation on the day that ITN were re-launching their News at Ten, and then on other 'normal' broadcast days.)
The site had a realy interesting mix of uses of video content, here is a bit of a breakdown of them:-
The news homepage is split more or less into three columns.
The first has the channel's top news stories and for every story you can click into a written article by clicking on the story's headline, and/or then also choose to watch the news report accompanying it by clicking on the video icon attached to the story's picture.
-I think this is well done, a good integration of web and video content, because the video and text complement each other rather than the text just being a transcript of the video.
These video reports appear to be reports that have been used in the regular broadcasts rather than made specifically for the website, so it must be a fairly cost-effective thing to do.
The second column is video reports only, ie when you click on the story you don't get a written article, just the video report which opens on the right hand side of the page.
-This column is only about half the width of the first, which is visually more interesting. It seems generally to be used ony for sport and entertainment news, which reflects the amount of importance given to Sport and Entertainment in the main news bulletins compared to general news.
The third column and the bottom of the second column contain video reports which would not be broadcast. On the day of the News at Ten launch for example there was a preview of the launch show with the female anchor Julie Etchells, ITN's big signing from Sky News. That particular report had an intentionally on-the-hoof feel to it, as it was shot at a newsroom camera rather than in the studio, and seemed to be unscripted (from the amount of times Julie repeated herself in it).
Other reports in these parts of the page include "A Correspondents View" pieces, with more personality-led pieces on the conditions in news locations, and "The Making of..." pieces showing eg. how the News at Ten titles are made.
-These Video Log / Vlog style pieces give a little behind the scenes look that there is time and space for on the website that the main bulletins won't always have. I think that even in these days of reality TV and interactivity, viewers still enjoy being given these behind-the-scenes type looks at TV reports. It also makes the website user feel like they're getting something different from the website than from the news programmes.
At the middle of the bottom of the screen is a link through to local news, divided by region. Once in the regional pages, you can search through local bulletins from the last week, which is a great resource. One reason why I like this feature is that if you want to look back to earlier stages of a running news story you can do so. Also, a lot of the ordinary people featured in local news will probably want to use this search feature to find their own contributions. I'm not sure if that's one of ITV's reasons for having this feature but I imagine it might be a good way to get new people using the website!
General comments
I like the layout of the ITV news homepage, the way the page is divided is clear to understand and use. I like the fact that every report has video footage at least, if not also an accompanying written report. The behind-the scenes style reports and show previews give the website an extra dimension you can't possibly get from the main news programmes.
It's also worth mentioning that once you've watched a report, several adverts appear in the video player, which is obviously a nice extra way for ITV to earn some revenue from news. (As we all know news does not make money for TV stations!)
That's enough for ITV, I'll do another post for local news pages, the Beeb and the other TV broadcasters I've looked at!
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4 comments:
Can I just say now I've posted it... I didn't realise I'd written so much! Oh well that's what the blog is for I suppose. Scary to think we'll be having to reduce all this research to little pithy two line statements for our presentation
A question to consider - do you think that people prefer to read an artcile or watch a video with the same information in it?
From personal experience I often find mysef prefering to read the article and have the facts and quotes in front of me, although I do like seeing at least one image with the written article.
How does this development into multiple ways of telling the news effect the audience? Is it attracting new audiences and retaining the old, or is it splitting the general reader into two groups - video or written orientations?
Do you think the final result will end in written articles being made redundant and the focus of news literally depending upon moving image and sound?
The article...'BBC internet video clip research' ...answers my questions on whether people prefer text or video with regards to the BBC audience.
But does it attract new audiences? Are younger generations becoming more hooked on news now that it is broken down into an easy format? Video content enables the viewer to watch / listen to the news while also carrying out other activities on the computer.
It is an easy way to scan the information, but does the viewer retain or understand the same information compared to somene who reads the articles?
I think it depends on how much time you have on your hands and what information you want. Choice is what's being offered to audiences through the emergence of internet tv and being able watch video content if that's what you require. We aren't robots after all, what might suit you Beth won't suit me or someone else. It's all about preference at the end of the day. I can't believe I just said at the end of the day on this blog...
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