National World, a British regional publishing group which owns a host of local and national newspapers, has announced the launch of a new TV brand, ‘Shots!’. Shots! will run as a live linear Freeview channel in the UK, as well as a website which will host on-demand content and a live feed of the linear channel.
The channel will run content created by journalists from across National World’s owned and operated titles. The company says that content will “focus on stories from around the UK, from the best of city life to the weird and wonderful, as well as expert insights into true crime, and the latest inside track for football fans”. Content categories featured on the website include ‘Real UK’, ‘UK Crime’, ‘Football’, and ‘Food & Drink’.
Both the on-demand content and the linear channel is being monetised by advertising, with Axiom Media handling ad sales.
More than just repackaging
A large part of National World’s strategy is pooling resources between smaller newspapers, allowing for greater efficiency. The company says that reducing the size of central infrastructure across the group, and launching new products and services which leverage its “strong base of editorial and commercial expertise” are two of its major strategic initiatives.
Video has also been a focus for the company. National World touted 67 percent growth in video ad revenues and 49 percent growth in video views in its most recent earnings report.
The launch of Shots! plays into these strategies. By pooling video content from across its local and national publishers – National World owns more than 100 newspapers and websites across the UK – it can provide a scaled content offering, bigger than any of these newspapers could individually create. This in turn makes this inventory more attractive on the sales front.
Many Shots! series were already being run on individual titles’ websites. For example, review series (Not) Everyone’s A Film Critic and Screen Babble already existed as podcasts – the former was hosted by National World title The Scotsman, and the latter launched by National World itself last year.
Some content meanwhile was already being run on National World’s YouTube channel (which has now been rebranded as Shots! TV).
But National World is creating new content specifically for the channel. Several National World journalists have made references to filming new shows for Shots! in social posts. And National World is also licensing some content to populate the channels – for example syndicated shows Walks Around Britain and Exceptional Homes are airing in its ‘Prime Time’ programming slot.
A shot into the wind?
Many publishers have been growing out their video offerings in one form or another, often via social channels, for years now. And several have moved onto the big screen via CTV apps.
But it’s rare to see publishers make the jump into traditional linear broadcast TV. With frequent gloomy headlines about the rapid rate of consumer shifts away from traditional linear TV, most publishers wanting to invest in TV-like content are choosing to go straight to streaming.
National World is no luddite. Growing digital revenues across its business is a core pillar of its strategy. However it clearly still sees value in traditional broadcast, especially since that same feed can be rebroadcast (and monetised) through digital channels too.
The business hinted that if the launch goes well, it may look to grow out its TV presence further in the future. Simplestream, the company which provided the core broadcasting technology, said the setup “provides a scalable solution for further distribution of content in the future”.
