A Year After BBCs Local Video Defeat, Local Papers Haven’t Kept Their Promise

A local newspaper reporter in Lancaster, Ohio captures an interview

Last November, you could hardly escape the din of newspaper proprietors complaining that the BBC’s £68 million plan to add video bulletins to its local websites would destroy their plans to move in to online video.

The BBC Trust agreed with the argument from Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI), the Newspaper Society and a host of others that Auntie shouldn’t be allowed “to distort these embryonic markets” or “to replicate services already provided by local media companies”, forbidding the BBC from going ahead and paving the way for newspapers to invest as promised in multimedia news.

But, almost one year after that decision, we’re waiting for the execution

— Johnston Press’ Scotsman.com, the UK’s leading regional newspaper site by traffic with an average 2.17 million monthly unique users in the first half of 2009, had just one video visible on its news section when I checked on Tuesday. And that was shot by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, not Scotsman.com (its video archive does have more).

— Guardian Media Group was one of the strongest critics of the Beeb’s plans through CEO Carolyn McCall; its GMG Regional division, which houses Manchestereveningnews.co.uk and several local titles, was set to benefit from having a fully staffed TV station and professional videos for its sites. But then GMG wiped out half of Channel M’s staff in job cuts, so what commitment does that show to regional newspaper video?

— There are glimmers of hope. Trinity Mirror’s flagship Liverpool Echo fares better with a busy video section, as does the newly launched HeraldScotland.com, now Newsquest’s biggest site. Northcliffe’s Thisishull.co.uk uploads a few videos a day.

But, on an average day, none of them match the frequency of output the BBC had proposed – nine extra short news, sport and weather reports for each of its 65 regions.

Grappling with debt, lower revenues and real long-term threats to their survival, it’s understandable that publishers’ new media investment in 2009 hasn’t exactly matched previous years. But consumers that missed out on the video news promised by the BBC have a right to ask: where is the video news the newspaper industry promised?

In a recession, you focus on what makes money. Video makes none for regional publishers. A study of 66 regional newspaper sites from the University of Central Lancashire carried out in 2008 found that 56 had video content but just one had any form of advertising, a pre-roll clip.

At the moment, the only UK media player that can truly transform regional online video news is one that doesn’t need advertising: the BBC.

Disclosure: paidContent:UK is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian News & Media.

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