ACBJ launches video news product for its business papers

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Charlotte-based American City Business Journals, which owns more than 40 business weeklies across the country, has launched a video news service — its first foray into video — that is now running on all of its paper’s Web sites.

Called BizJournals Today, the daily video segment combines the top news from across the company’s papers, said Tim Bradbury, president of the company’s new media division.

“We hand select which of the articles that we’re publishing that we think have the most broad-based appeal,” said Bradbury. “We’re starting it as a video product to get a sense of what the appetite is for local business news consumers in watching video.”

BizJournals Today launched last week, and it’s being produced by the chain’s Boston Business Journal paper because it has the equipment and a relationship with a local production shop.

Bradbury said that ACBJ is looking to expand its online video offerings by producing news shows that focus on specific industries, such as technology, health care and commercial real estate, across the country.

He added that there’s the potential to put together geographic-focused video news segments for regions where ACBJ has a cluster of papers, such as Texas or North Carolina.

A sample of the videos can be found here.