I recently spoke with Jordan Vita, vice president of product, storytelling at NYT, and Solana Pyne, video director at NYT, to learn more about the thinking behind the new Watch tab launched last month and how the team is set up to deliver it.

Video has long been a strong performer for The Times, particularly with audiences newer to The Times. Both the most loyal, long-term subscribers and users who haven’t even registered yet are watching NYT videos, and overall video consumption across the Times’ platforms has more than doubled year-over-year. Users are now completing hundreds of millions of minutes worth of video content monthly with high completion rates across formats.

The new Watch tab gives viewers a “video-first” way to engage with NYT content, surfacing videos from across all The Times’ properties — News, Opinion, The Athletic, Cooking, Wirecutter, and Podcasts. Importantly, the videos themselves are not made specifically for Watch; the tab curates from the existing portfolio, currently featuring about 20 videos per day. 

In total, The Times produces and publishes 75 hours of professionally produced video per month, and video production has increased by more than 60%, reflecting the growth of the medium.

Watching has more than doubled, increasing 164% year-over-year, and some formats are particularly strong: In 2024, users watched New York Times Cooking videos for more than 4.3 million hours alone.

The editorial approach to Watch is deliberate. While the format may feel familiar to anyone who uses TikTok or Instagram Reels, Watch is not designed to compete with those platforms. It stays true to The Times’ brand and tone, aiming to attract a wide engaged audience while keeping The Times’ editorial standards front and center.

Watch is also part of a broader strategy to meet audiences where they are. The Times distributes video off-platform as well, building relationships and brand affinity in spaces where people already spend their time. This is about brand building rather than immediate monetisation or driving clicks back to the app.

AI wise, The Times doesn’t use AI in video but has previously been recognised for reporting that leverages AI, including a Pulitzer, demonstrating that AI is used responsibly and strategically in their newsroom.

Advertising wise video is lucrative. Joy Robins, global chief advertising officer at NYT, told us:

“The Watch tab is an exciting new placement for advertisers that adds a significant pillar to our full suite of video advertising offerings (native placements, interstitials, social, instream ads, integrations). Available for brands as part of an open beta test for vertical video advertising by early 2026, this new placement will offer brands a way to create video ads with speed and simplicity, making it easier than ever to get started and optimise campaigns.”

(My colleague Gabe Dorosz, who leads the INMA Advertising Initiative, has written more about that here.)

Overall, the team behind Watch is structured for agility and editorial oversight. Jordan Vita leads the cross-functional storytelling mission, coordinating between editorial, product, and tool-building functions. 

Solana Pyne oversees the newsroom’s video journalism and curation in the tab, ensuring consistency in style. Video producers, editors, and engineers work closely together with integrated verification and production tooling to maintain quality and trust.

Each video passes through multiple checkpoints — editorial curation, technical quality, and verification — before it lands in the Watch tab. This setup allows the team to scale efficiently while keeping content aligned with The Times’ standards.

In short, Watch is a curated, video-first space that highlights The Times diverse video portfolio, attracts a younger audience, and strengthens the brand across platforms — all while keeping The Times’ editorial voice intact and building on a clear track record of growing engagement with video. 

It meets one of the biggest challenges I believe news media faces: how to compete with format-first platforms such as TikTok for video and Substack for text but keep consumers on platform (where publishers are best to monetise). A true product design challenge that in this case has been met beautifully. We’ll stay tuned for results. 

Banner art by Adobe Stock Torpix.

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