For as long as vertically-oriented video has been popular on smartphones, media businesses have been testing their potential. 

The format has proven to be popular for communication, entertainment, and increasingly news. It has also been particularly in demand among younger consumers, a demographic that publishers are keen to reach. 

It isn’t just light entertainment or specious news that works well on vertical video platforms, either. Aisling Ennis, news editor on the video desk at PA Media, said, “Vertical video works brilliantly for breaking news, sport, entertainment, lifestyle and human-interest stories. We find that different publishers are looking for different genres, but there is demand across the board.”

Similarly, Bill Carey, Managing Editor, Audience & Membership for Vox, explains, “We clearly see that Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and millennials are consuming news and information through vertical video, which is why we’ve invested in doing more of it and making sure we’re reaching our audiences in that format.”

So if the vertical format works for video in general, what have been the sticking points when it comes to publishers making the most of it?

Changing audience habits

For one thing, it took a while for vertical videos to become a large part of audience consumption habits.

According to analyst Mary Meeker, people use vertically oriented devices nearly 30% of the time. That is a dramatic change from 2010, at which point that figure was only five percent. This shift was driven, at least in part, by the rise of vertical video-specific platforms.

With TikTok, Snap, and then a variety of imitators seeking to replicate the success of the video format on their own platforms, that vertical-oriented behavior grew. It was, however, largely confined to those platforms. Even now, the majority of the consumption of news video among younger audiences takes place on platforms designed specifically for vertical video. According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism: 

“Almost the same proportion of people in all age groups (around a third) say they use YouTube weekly for online news videos. The contrast with TikTok and Instagram is immense: almost four in ten people aged 18–24 say they use TikTok weekly for news videos (it is 36% for Instagram), compared to just 12% of over 55s (15% for Instagram).”

However, the reality is that vertical video has been around for long enough – and aped by so many apps – that it now exists as a habit outside of any specific platform. This audience inclination presents media businesses with the opportunity to ride the wave of vertical video on their own terms.

Off the platforms

At The New York Times, that begins with a recognition that vertical video reaches a huge swath of people, divorced from any one app. To that end, it has invested in its Watch tab in its own app, which launched last October, Solana Pyne, Video Director at The New York Times, said: “Nearly all the video we make is vertical first because we know most people are watching on their phones, but we don’t tailor our stories for specific platforms.”

Other major international and national publications are similarly investing in creating in-house vertical video content, delivered via their own platforms and websites. 

CNN, too, launched a dedicated feed on its app’s homepage dedicated to vertical video in November of last year. Both USA Today and BILD have followed suit, with most including Le Monde building upon what they initially learned about the format on other platforms like TikTok.

“It is also something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more trusted publications push the format, the more audiences will seek it out when looking for news and information.” As Pyne explains, “We see our audience watching more vertical video as we’ve reported more stories in the format. A scrollable feed has become such a common way to engage with these kinds of videos, not just on TikTok but also on Instagram and YouTube Shorts. The Watch Tab was the next natural iteration of our investment in this kind of journalism”.

Importantly, the shift towards publishing vertical video on owned sites allows publishers to focus upon metrics they can both trust and integrate into wider strategy development. Anna Dubenko, Newsroom Audience Director at The New York Times, explained: “Every platform is slightly different when it comes to reaching and engaging audiences. And social elements vary between platforms – for example, sharing and commenting have different significance across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.”

There are, however, certain benefits to the social aspects of the vertical video platforms that publishers can take advantage of. As Carey explained, “The opportunity with vertical video-first platforms is the additional social element. When major breaking news happens, for example, we might ask our audience directly through an Instagram broadcast channel or WhatsApp to send us their questions. We have always done versions of that kind of audience listening. But now with vertical video, we have a new format for answering those questions, and we can hop in the comments to answer an additional question if needed.”

Vertical limits

Watching a video lengthways is not the only changing audience behavior driven by the format, however. For better or worse, the shortform nature of most vertical video is designed to keep people on platform, allowing easy access to the next video either through a swipe or infinite scroll.

At Reach Plc, which has been heavily investing in video content across the board, that has led to a change in how much of its vertical video is presented on its sites. Its Studio Creative Director Amy Hydes explains: “We recently launched continuous scroll video on the Daily Star and the plan is to launch out across more titles this year. 

“We know that people have come to expect that seamless scrolling experience and again, we need to meet people where they live and weave ourselves into their lives.”

She notes that one way to do so is to leverage the expertise of creators and journalists who have direct experience with social video: “Launching new original formats and standalone video brands means we are bringing more vertical video experts into the business. I have been bringing social first natives into the original content teams who live and breathe social platforms; they know what the latest trends are, shoot and edit content quickly, are confident being on camera, can launch social formats and also dive into the analytics.”

Platform and purpose

By divorcing vertical video from the platforms on which it emerged, there is also the potential for media businesses to present it in an environment that is both more brand safe, and also away from the non-stop advertising and sponsored content that appears on those apps.

All of the interviewees DCN spoke with also stressed that they do not create journalism in the vertical video format for the sake of it. Instead, they say it has to exist and stand alongside the rest of their multimedia output in terms of purpose and quality. The Telegraph’s Executive Editor of Audio and Video, Matthew Bayley, said: “The

most important criteria in deciding investment is whether the story we are telling – and the

the way we are telling it – amounts to distinctive, quality journalism”.

Carey said: “We know that more casual, creator-style formats where a journalist is talking into their phone like they’re having a conversation with a friend often resonate better on vertical video platforms than more highly produced videos. But because our journalists are already used to thinking across mediums, we’re able to expand the reach of important stories by being thoughtful about how each version is presented.”

So, as audience consumption of vertical video has grown, media businesses have increasingly brought production in-house for their own platforms.

Now that the association with the social platforms where the format originated has lessened, publications are able to use the format to further their own journalistic mission while speaking to a new demographic that is becoming used to consuming information that way.