Hey, TV networks! Get ready for your latest lunchtime competitor: The New York Times.
NYTimes.com just announced TimesCast, "an original daily video news program which offers an inside look at the top stories The Times is following each day."
TimesCast features interviews with reporters on what they are covering, before they appear online. There's also footage from the editors' daily huddle on the day's Page One news stories.
The premiere episode (watch it below!) a bit like TMZ TV, but with a jazzy soundtrack, fewer celebrity scandals and sleepy interviews.
Deputy business editor David Gillen talk about chasing a Google China story and associate managing editor Jim Roberts chatting about which reporters are working on the healthcare reform vote follow-up stories.
The video appears on NYTimes.com's homepage between 1 to 2 p.m. each weekday and on the Times’s mobile site.
The Times' launch sponsor is FedEx. Back in November, the Times reported on a story about how ads in online videos are booming in "Online Ads Are Booming, if They’re Attached to a Video," with this stat: "Digital video amounted to $477 million in revenue in the first half of 2009, up 38 percent from the same time period in 2008, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau."
"This is another example of our continuing emphasis on video, which represents one of the largest growth areas in digital media," said Denise Warren, senior vice president and chief advertising officer, The New York Times Media Group in the announcement. "This series offers a new branding opportunity for advertisers, giving access to an engaged audience on the homepage and in multiple locations on the site and on mobile.”
The Wall Street Journal is already posting a twice-a-day live newscast on WSJ.com.
