AP distributes live and edited video to its clients (broadcasters, online publishers etc) around the world. Many major broadcasters and
networks rely heavily upon The AP for major
breaking news from around the world. The AP currently offers seven live video channels to its clients. The company also provides specialised broadcast services to clients, via its AP360 operation, such as editing, crewing or satellite feeds from news and sports events. Historical footage is also made available from its extensive film and video archives, which date back to 1895. It includes the film and video archives of onetime AP rival
UPI's longtime
newsfilm service
United Press International Television News, which was the original agency that became WTN. AP Video is based in
North London (in a former gin warehouse on the
Regent's Canal called "The Interchange" because its original function was to interchange freight between the canal and rail systems) with bureaus in 85 cities and 79 nations, including
New York City,
Washington D.C.,
Paris,
Rome and
Moscow; as well as current-event regions such as
Iraq and
Afghanistan. It uses
fibre-optic and streaming to relay video footage to TV networks and
newsrooms.
Use of video Video
news agencies such as AP, and its main competitors
AFP TV and
Reuters Video News, typically do not produce programmes that traditional TV owners could watch. Rather, they provide footage of an event with only natural sound and very loose editing. However, AP does also produce a range of entertainment and special interest programmes that are provided as
white-label products for client use. Agency customers, who are online publishers, local and national TV stations,
documentary producers,
cable television news channels, and the like, edit the agency footage to suit their style, and add their own graphics and
voice-overs before transmission. The premise for a video news agency is simple: very few
TV stations devote enough money to newsgathering to put hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of camera, editing, and satellite transmission equipment everywhere that news might happen. Video news agencies provide rapid response coverage and international reach for those TV stations. The agency obtains footage from their own camera crews, arrangements with local TV broadcasters to redistribute their material, material shot by
freelancers who sell their footage to the agencies, and on occasion footage shot by the public (such as the famous footage of the
2000 crash of an Air France Concorde outside
Paris and the hijacked
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961, which ditched off the
Comoro Islands in 1996) Footage shot with broadcast-quality cameras is preferred, but quality can sometimes come second to content or immediacy for an exclusive story. The maintenance of a network of local bureaux by the agencies means that local staff with expert knowledge are on hand to capture footage in places where
Western camera crews could be in danger. An example of this is the
Kosovo War in
Serbia during which most journalists left the country prior to the
NATO bombing campaign. In addition, TV reporters who often do not have the budgets or expertise to carry with a full
satellite uplink are able to use the local agency bureaux. AP has a department called "AP360" which specialises in providing on site production and transmission facilities either through the AP bureaux infrastructure or at breaking or set-piece news events. APTN managed to get a
satellite dish and
transmission gear into
Banda Aceh,
Indonesia, following the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake before the region was closed to air traffic. This became just about the only live video feed point available for the world's media, and was used extensively by network reporters for transmitting their recorded reports, or going
"live" on air into their news and bulletins. Wherever viewers see the same footage on more than one news station, the chances are that it came either from or via a video news agency. There has been little published research into the work of television news agencies apart from a 2011 book which argues that through their agenda-setting role, they are an important, but mostly hidden, force shaping the global conversation about politics and international affairs.
Public relations services APTN's corporate services division produces and distributes
video news releases (VNRs), video-form
press release designed for use on broadcast television, for businesses'
public relations campaigns. APTN offers this service despite concern among
journalists about some news broadcasters relying on VNR material for their news budgets instead of broadcasting their own original reporting. ==References==