The future is narrowcasting

Chris Cramer, the global editor of multimedia for Reuters News, writes about the new video service that the wire service is offering to financial pros.

Cramer writes, “Later this year we will launch the next-generation information service which will produce live markets coverage, analysis and breaking news for the financial professional — in this case the five hundred thousand institutional professionals currently subscribing to Thomson Reuters financial services.

“The service — delivered exclusively via broadband internet — launches during the world’s most profound financial crisis in half a century, a story Reuters is throwing all its resources against, and will draw upon our huge global network of 2,500 journalists, almost 200 worldwide bureaus and writers and commentators from Thomson Reuters professional publications.

“This is not the first time the news agency has launched a television service just for its clients. Reuters Financial TV went to market, delivered via bandwidth hungry data lines, in 1993. The service was then considered well ahead of its time and, though professional and highly-regarded by its customers, had excessive distribution costs. It stopped transmitting in 2001.

“But Reuters has long held ambitions to return to the programming business and during the past year we have secretly planned for a return to narrowcasting. In record time we have built state of the art studios in London and New York and broadband transmission points in many of our overseas locations, including Hong Kong, Washington, Singapore and other global newsrooms.”

Read more here.