Mobile video has evolved to become the primary channel for younger audiences to consume content, reinforced by the dominance of video platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Beyond that, digital video consumption is rising amoung all age demographics — and advertising spend has followed the users.

To News Corp Australia, these trends point to an obvious opportunity for news media to offer a unique and compelling video experience underscored by the credibility its news brand offers.

Rethinking visual storytelling

The company launched its Web-based vertical video platform News Shorts in July 2023 after extensive user research. Prototyping and user testing not only validated the direction for the initiative but also identified key features important to users.

News Shorts is a vertical, mobile-first experience with swipeable videos that include sport, news, food, and lifestyle content. The video player itself offers interactive and shoppable video types in a snackable, one-minute or less format, while the News Shorts carousels make it easy to promote news shorts on home and index pages.

A news video hub aggregates a library of all News Shorts video content that is optimised for indexation by search engines.

With these new formats come new opportunities to better understand and serve users’ needs and advertising performance through data. An analytics dashboard, paired with metadata optimisation and streamlined collection tools, helps drive digital transformation in editorial newsrooms and scale content production.

Proven audience engagement

The platform focuses on evergreen, ensuring seamless integration across News Corp’s diverse publication network. Beyond content, the new platform has helped the company foster commercial partnerships through contextually relevant advertising in a trusted, brand-safe video environment.

Since its launch in July 2023, News Shorts has become integral to the News Corp readership. The company saw unique visitors double to 2.3 million and monthly content start to surge by 270% to reach 8.5 million by December 2023. Ad starts also saw a significant increase from 100,000 to 1.6 million, showcasing a phenomenal 1,500% month-over-month growth in ad engagement.

Beyond quantitative indicators of success, one surveyed user said they love the whole-screen experience: “As someone with visual needs and wearing glasses, I find I can interact with my phone like on the couch with my glasses off. I just think you’re getting so much more out of the platform and the video.”

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