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July 27, 2006updated 22 Nov 2022 8:23pm

BBC News set to launch its first vodcasts

By Press Gazette

BBC News has announced that it will launch the corporation's first vodcasts — video podcasts — later this week.

The corporation will launch five news programmes as an initial "experiment in video downloading".

The controller of production and deputy director for BBC News, Adrian Van Klaveren, said: "None of us knows for certain exactly what kind of length will be most appropriate here, how often people want to download this sort of content and how they'll use it.

"We just want to try to understand what works best for audiences and what works best technically as well."

Over the past 18 months audio podcasts have taken off and become one of the big themes of discussion within the industry.

With the proliferation of devices now on the market which also play video content in addition to audio, the BBC said it was a "pretty natural thing" to make stories available for video downloading.

"Best of" compilations of the top 10 O'Clock News and Newsnight stories will be available for download, and the recently launched Story Fix, a snappy round up of the week on the News 24 website, will be adapted for vodcasting.

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The BBC has also been working on a morning show, with the working title The Breakfast Takeaway, which will headline the agenda for the day and serve as a briefing.

Van Klaveren said: "I think it is going to be called The Breakfast Takeaway, which will be a fairly brief agenda setting show at the beginning of the day that somebody could download before going off to work and have available to watch on the way."

The corporation will also launch a reformatted version of Question Time to see how it goes down with vodcast viewers.

The total trial will last for 12 months.

News will be the first phase, but the BBC will be bringing output from other types of programmes into the trial over the course of the year.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

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