TV News is becoming more Vine-like by the day, as MSNBC and video start-up NowThis News announced a joint video partnership called “15 Seconds To Truth” today.
The short news videos will air on MSNBC’s digital, social, and mobile platforms, while also airing on TV in and out of commercials.
“MSNBC viewers want honest and informed perspectives that explore the often overlooked angles of important stories,” said Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC. “With this new series we aim to continue delivering that unique vantage point in a visually gripping way, on-air and on mobile and social platforms.”
“NowThis is breaking the conventions of news to make it more visual, emotional, and personal for the social web” said Sean Mills, President of NowThis News. “By bringing content custom made for Twitter and Facebook to television, and not the other way around, MSNBC is embracing the possibilities of cross-platform news delivery in innovative new ways.”
This comes as CNN recently announced “CNN Digital Studios,” which will also produce short-form videos; one of them is called “15 second morning,” a bite-size news report.
The short-form video adaptation by news networks that traditionally air much longer video news reports (usually a minute to two minutes), called “packages” in the business, is interesting.
For now, we’ll see them teetering around the edges, producing shorter packages for digital and mobile platforms, but we might not be far off from a TV-news shift to shorter content appearing on-air as well.