FT to open New York video studio

Lucia Moses of Digiday reports about the plans by the Financial Times to expand its video operations in the United States.

Moses writes, “But while others have been enamored lately with the 15-second format in pursuit of the Instagram audience and Twitterati, the FT is content to experiment with a range of video lengths, which can run from reporters’ one-minute field dispatches to eight-minute conversations with newsmakers.

“‘I think the jury’s out in terms of what the optimum length of video is on different devices,’ said Veronica Kan-Dapaah, the FT’s head of video. ‘I think form has got to follow content.’

“Kan-Dapaah is leading the business publisher’s plan to expand its U.S-based video production, aided by a new video studio that’s opening at the paper’s New York headquarters June 19. In the first quarter of 2014, the FT produced about 152 videos per month. She’d like to get that up to 200, through more coverage of topics like U.S. markets, politics, Silicon Valley and technology reviews, using existing video staff of 14 and the FT’s journalists, who are increasingly trained to shoot and edit their own dispatches.

“Most of the FT’s content stands firmly behind its online paywall, making it an exception to the rule of scale that dictates online publishing. The paywall contributes to a consumer subscription strategy that, enviably, generates more than half the paper’s overall revenue.”

Read more here.