The Belfast Telegraph launchedan internet TV station this week, two weeks after competitor The Irish News did the same.
The service, entitled Belfast Telegraph TV, will provide news, features and existing supplements such as Jobfinder, Local Heroes, Homefinder and corporate section the Business Telegraph.
Editor Martin Lindsay said: “Belfast Telegraph TV is an online fusion of the regional news agenda of newspaper journalists and professional broadcasters.
Brought to you from our newsrooms in the heart of Belfast through the Macmillan Media broadcast operation, our aim is not just to bring you the day’s general rolling news in bite-size chunks for busy people. It is also to distill some of our best stories into that bulletin. After all, we are the news leader of all Northern Ireland’s newspapers.”
The station takes on an ITN-style format with projected blue-screen imaging, while the Irish News TV resembles video upload site YouTube. Its viewer feedback feature was recently removed.
The Telegraph is claiming to take a step further than its competitors by updating content three times a day and by providing downloadable features.
The station launch coincides with a revamp for the Telegraph’s 10-year-old website, which will host the broadcasts and will also be encouraging citizen journalism.
Lindsay said: “We plan to equip some of our journalists with the skills to make and edit video reports which will then be viewable on belfasttelegraph.co.uk. No event will be too small for us to cover, so we are encouraging readers and viewers to let us know what events are happening in their area as we will consider covering these or giving readers and viewers the chance to send in their own video footage for broadcast on our website.”
The Belfast Telegraph has a circulation of around 130,000 and was launched in 1870.
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