The publisher says it will create thousands of videos each year across The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sun on Sunday websites.
As well as recorded video, News UK will also experiment with live video output creating over a 100 videos per month including Facebook Live.
The investment is driven by the rise in mobile usage across News UK’s sites, with 80% of traffic to The Sun and 35% of The Times’ now coming from mobile devices. The move will make News UK the industry’s foremost player in original video content, says the company.
The investment was announced at the Cannes Lions festival as the company increases its work with brands on video content, including deals with Doritos, Morrisons and Activision.
Derek Brown, Head of Video at News UK said: “This is a significant moment in the UK news industry – marking the point where video becomes one of our major output formats. Video has become the most evocative way of telling stories and our titles have always excelled at storytelling – its the perfect match.”
Dominic Carter, Chief Commercial Officer of News UK, said: “This is a huge opportunity for brands to reach our engaged audiences in the context of fantastic, original video content. We’ve already enjoyed significant success in campaigns for the likes of Morrisons and Doritos and, with this new investment in video content, we expect to see many more advertising partners joining us on this journey.”
