The Financial Times is to significantly increase the amount of video news it carries on its website after unveiling new TV studios at its London headquarters.
The new facility comprises a studio with four remote-control cameras and a state-of-the-art editing suite which will help the Pearson-owned publication increase its multimedia output.
The FT currently produces 180 pieces of video a month to run online and also uses video supplied through a content sharing agreement with business news broadcaster CNBC.
At the studio’s official opening last night FT editor Lionel Barber said: ‘Video is becoming a really big part of our editorial operation. We now work seamlessly across print, online, podcasts and video.
‘All of our journalists have now undertaken dedicated video training and I think we are getting better and better at it. They are getting more confident and understand that it is part of their job.”
Speaking about the new studio, he said: ‘This is going to move us from four-star to five-star in terms of quality.”
Barber said that the FT’s video operation is now a profitable part of the business – and he said that the new studio, with its eye-catching City of London backdrop, would be rented out to other broadcasters to provide another revenue stream.
Press Gazette understands that the FT now has a dozen dedicated staff working on the video operation – with content provided by the same journalists who work on the print edition and online.
FT head of video Richard Edgar said: ‘Nine out of ten journalists are now very excited and pleased to be doing video.”
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