Q: Why has video become such an important format for publishers over the past few years?
A: The biggest change has been audience behaviour and the fracturing of platforms and formats. Viewers are consuming more news through video, but they’re also consuming it in many more places. It’s no longer just about a publisher’s homepage or a broadcaster’s linear channel – there are dozens of social apps, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and a whole range of other platforms competing for attention.
That fragmentation means publishers have to meet audiences where they are and find niches, and increasingly that means having a strong video offering. We’ve seen that reflected in demand from our own customers with particularly strong demand for live and content that engages on social platforms. Vertical, reel-based consumption has become a normal way for people to discover and consume news, rather than something publishers can treat as an add-on to their main output.
Q: What are publishers still getting wrong about video strategy?
A: I think one mistake is treating “video” as if it’s a single format. A piece of 16:9 footage for a website, a live stream and a 30-second vertical video for a social platform are all video, but audiences use them in very different ways.
For a long time, the workflow was essentially to produce one piece of video and then adapt or crop it for everywhere else. That can create unnecessary work and it doesn’t always result in content that feels native to the platform.
The better question is: where is the audience going to encounter this story, and what does the video need to do in that environment? Sometimes, that means live coverage, sometimes video explainer and sometimes a short vertical edit to grab attention. The underlying journalism and editorial standards remain the same, but the presentation has to reflect how and where people are actually consuming it.
Q: How should publishers think differently about “video-first” journalism?
A: I don’t think video-first should mean “video instead of words”. Written journalism remains incredibly important and plays a huge part in how visual journalism is depicted. It’s more about linking all formats up and thinking visually from the beginning of the newsgathering process rather than treating video as something you add afterwards.
If a journalist is covering a major event, for example, you’re thinking about the written story and still photography, but also asking: what are the strongest moving images here? Is there a live opportunity? Is there a moment that will work particularly well vertically?
That also changes how journalists gather material. We might capture something on a professional broadcast camera, through a live transmission setup or natively on a mobile phone in vertical format. The format can change, but identifying the strongest visual moments and applying the same editorial standards to them is the important part.
Q: What role does live video now play in audience engagement?
A: Live has become much more important. We’ve seen live coverage used to bring audiences back to publishers’ own platforms, support subscription strategies and create revenue opportunities. And editorially, there are certain moments where audiences simply want to see events unfolding for themselves. That makes live a very powerful complement to the wider coverage around a story.
Q: How important is data in shaping video strategy today?
A: It’s increasingly important because publishers now have much more information about where audiences are watching, what formats they engage with and how their behaviour differs from platform to platform.
But I think there’s a distinction between being data-informed and allowing the data to dictate every editorial decision. The numbers can tell you that audiences are moving toward social or live video, for example, and that should influence how you invest and distribute content. But they don’t replace editorial judgement about which stories matter or which moments are worth capturing.
Q: How is AI beginning to influence video production and distribution?
A: AI is clearly going to have an impact across the video workflow, particularly around some of the more repetitive production and distribution tasks. There are obvious areas where technology can potentially help – things like making content easier to discover, preparing it for different destinations or reducing some of the manual work involved in getting video from the point of capture to publication.
But in news video, there’s an important distinction between using technology to make a workflow faster and outsourcing editorial judgement to it. Trust becomes more important, not less, as AI-generated and manipulated content becomes easier to produce.
Whatever technology sits within the workflow, human verification and editorial oversight remain fundamental. Every piece of footage published should be edited and verified by journalists. I think maintaining that chain of trust while finding sensible ways for technology to make production more efficient is going to be one of the important challenges for the industry.
Q: What’s in the pipeline from PA Media?
A: PA will always respond and adapt to how publishers and their audiences are using video.
Live will continue to be an important area, and we’ll keep looking at how video can be delivered in the formats publishers actually need. One recent example is social-ready video. Traditionally, syndicated agency footage has largely been supplied in 16:9 and publishers have then had to re-edit it themselves for vertical platforms. We’ve introduced a 9:16 feed so that suitable footage can also be available in a format that’s ready for social publishing.
More broadly, I think the direction of travel is towards making the PA’s trusted journalism more adaptable. A single news event might need to work as live coverage, traditional footage, a consumer-ready edit or a vertical social video. The challenge for us is to make those different versions available efficiently while maintaining the same standards of accuracy and verification across all of them.
About us
PA Media is the national news agency for the UK and Ireland, providing multimedia content and services to media organisations, brands, and businesses. With a long-standing reputation for accuracy and reliability, we deliver breaking news, sports coverage, video, and data-driven journalism to audiences across broadcast, digital, and emerging platforms.
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