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Narrowcast video delivered over broadband will be the key component of the future for MEN Media websites, its chief executive has told an industry conference.

Speaking at the Society of Editors conference, in Manchester today, Mark Dodson told delegates that the company would use its city-focused TV station Channel M as a digital bridge to bring viewers to its online video offerings.

"Video will be a key component of every website we produce, the future of television may be clouded, but the value of video must not be underestimated," he said.

"Some newspapers are already experimenting with video, using user-generated content or their own footage to enhance their offering.

"At GMG Regional we are using the whole of our television channel for a live experiment for diversified video dissemination.

"We see Channel M as a digital bridge, attracting viewers to a broadcast television station with highly relevant local content.

"We then intend to handhold our audience across that bridge from broadcast to narrowcast, helping them navigate the journey from a liner channel to a broadband, narrowcast, on-demand future."

Guardian Media Group (GMG) regional controls the Manchester Evening News (MEN) operations, newspaper and websites across the Great Manchester region.

Dodson added that MEN Media had a network 13 news offices across the region producing content for local newspapers and websites, all controlled by the converged news hub of the MEN in city centre.

"I believe the race is on to showcase our video content, the race will be global, national and local in scale.

"We'll naturally focus on local because that's where we have an advantage over entrants into our market place. We have advantages in history, trust and contact - both commercially and editorially.

"We also control the most powerful commercial tools in our market place, our newspapers.

"The value of discovering how consumers want to use our video online and finding a way of how to monetise that will be colossal, we're preparing ourselves for that challenge."

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Written by

Laura Oliver
Laura Oliver
Laura Oliver is a freelance journalist, a contributor to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, co-founder of The Society of Freelance Journalists and the former editor of Journalism.co.uk (prior to it becoming JournalismUK)

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