More publishers are pivoting towards videos, like it or not
Mic, a website aimed at millennials, used to employ 40 writers and editors producing articles on topics like “celebrating beauty” and “strong women.”
Ten were let go this month, with most in the revamped newsroom of 63 now focused on making videos for places like Facebook.
Critics have called such moves “100 per cent cynical” and out of sync with audience demand. Yet, Americans are watching more video snippets online. The growing audience for video, more valuable to advertisers than the space next to words, is causing websites to shift resources in what’s become known across the industry as the pivot to video.
“When you think about how many hours people spend watching video versus reading, the audience has already spoken,” said Chris Altchek, CEO of Mic. The outlet’s viewers spend 75 per cent of their time with “visual” content like videos, not text, he said.
Americans are expected to spend 81 minutes a day watching digital video in 2019, up from 61 minutes in 2015, according to projections by research firm eMarketer. Time spent reading a newspaper is expected to drop to 13 minutes a day from 16 minutes during that time. The question is whether those trends will sustain the growing number of outlets flooding social networks with video clips.
“It’s alarming,” said Paul Verna, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer. “Publishers are throwing their hats into a ring that’s unproven.”
Mic, a New York-based news site founded in 2011, was just the latest to fire writers when it announced its pivot to video this month. Dozens of writers and editors have also been laid off this summer at news outlets like Vocativ, Fox Sports, Vice and MTV News. All of the moves were tied in part to focusing more resources on making videos.
Publishers are heading in this direction even though polls show consumers find video ads more irritating than TV commercials. Google and Apple are testing features that let you mute websites with auto-play videos or block them entirely. More young Americans prefer reading the news than watching it, according to a survey last year by the Pew Research Centre.
But many publishers have little choice. Facebook and Google are vacuuming up the lion’s share of digital ad dollars, forcing news sites to find other ways to make money. Some media outlets are focusing on subscriptions. Others are getting into e-commerce. Those options take time to bear fruit. — Bloomberg