During the awards ceremony at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on 13 May, judges praised Reuters for its innovative approach and excellent use of new media.
Reuters introduced the free TV on demand service in March last year. Footage is transmitted to Reuters via satellite from reporters in the field and, once digitised and encoded, can be streamed from the site.
The service has been able to provide unedited footage of breaking events including Michael Jackson's arrest and the capture of Saddam Hussein.
The site records around 300,000 unique users and more than 2 million video downloads each month.
"Much of the footage on Reuters television comes from our flagship TV service which we wholesale to the world's leading news broadcasters," said Susan Allsopp, spokesperson for Reuters.
"But many of the business news pieces are unique to Reuters.co.uk and, of course, it is the only place viewers can see all the unedited, raw footage."
Reuters.co.uk provides more than 150 video clips at any one time, and there is currently no charge for the service.
"At the moment our priority is to provide a fast, accurate and innovative online video experience to as many of our users as possible," Ms Allsopp told dotJournalism.
A major relaunch of the service is planned for June, which will improve easier browsing, download speeds and offer more sponsorship opportunities for advertisers. The site will also launch an RSS feed for its video service in the next few days, said Ms Allsopp.
"With Reuters RSS you can take Reuters world class television headlines, free of charge, and incorporate them into your preferred newsreaders and weblogs."
• Video highlights of the 2004 New Media Age Effectiveness awards ceremony are available at http://www.flyonthewall.tv/FlyBroadcast/newmediazero.com/awards04
Related articles:
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story862.shtml
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story855.shtml
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story848.shtml
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story796.shtml
See also:
http://reutersuk.feedroom.com
http://www.newmediazero.com/awards04/default.aspx
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