PA Media vertical video
PA has adopted a “video-first” approach to its content offering in response to increased demand for live and vertical video content, driven by social media and the agency’s unrivalled access to news, sporting and cultural events.
The UK’s largest press agency, PA Media has been offering a live video and on-demand service since 2022, but in the last six months it has put video at the forefront of its journalistic output, while continuing to deliver text and images at existing levels.
In a UK press agency first, it has launched a new vertical video feed that provides syndicated “reel-ready” content for the likes of Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and even LinkedIn .
Head of video, Joe Pickover, said: “At PA we pivot to what our customers need and we’ve never been asked for more video content than we have been in the last couple of years,” adding that it represented the biggest pivot to video of his career so far.
PA live video feeds tripled in three years
When PA launched its live video service in 2022 it ran some 600 live feeds that year; in 2025 that number has risen to 2,000. “We have upped the amount of live events on a daily basis to go along with customer need and appetite,” said Pickover.
The agency has its own cloud-based master control room, a digital gallery of screens showing separate feeds that its clients can choose between, allowing media organisations both big and small to transmit its live content on social media “with the click of a mouse”.
Supplying these feeds is a network of live transmission units with broadcast-quality cameras, a core video team of 25 people and PA’s wider network of multimedia journalists, “who are all trained in broadcast and live transmission” among other skills.
“With all that power and network behind us, on any given day we have around 100 cameras we can call on,” said Pickover. “That really helps make sure we’ve got wide coverage for the UK – any big, relevant events going on across the UK and Ireland every day, we are there.”
PA live video feed adds level of trust online
And with smartphone cameras being of such high quality now, journalists are able to create video content even with the smallest of setups.
PA’s vertical video feed has already had “a lot of interest from clients”, said Pickover, “because they can take PA’s trusted, accurate content and not have to second guess if they can instantly publish it to their social media or apps”. And there’s an added level of trust that comes from “being there and seeing things unfold live” at a time when the veracity and authenticity of online videos and images is being constantly called into question.
Working with many of its UK clients on video strategy has given PA Media a keen insight into the digital news market and its movements, but it is also responding to demand from those same clients, with “more requests to have content that’s live first and foremost”.
Video is “certainly here to stay” said Pickover, pointing to the way social media apps are now set up as a clear indication that “video will always be at the forefront of [the] content offering going forward” even if the way in which we consume it might change with technology – e.g. augmented or virtual reality, long touted as the next big thing.
“Audiences are engaging with video on social media more than ever before. And that’s driven by social media companies and how they’ve made video at the forefront of their platforms,” said Pickover.
“What that is doing for everyone, whether you’re a social media company or publisher, is gathering audiences and keeping traffic on whichever platform you’re viewing the content.”
Video is driving dwell time and audience engagement
A big part of video’s staying power is its ability to drive engagement and the relative ease with which it can be monetised, e.g. pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll adverts, as well as sponsorships. Indeed, digital video advertising has become a normal part of our lives.
Pickover points to the “way in which video is served” on social media, with users “instantly presented with the next video as soon as one’s finished”, as a way in which it has increased dwell time on publisher’s apps and their social media feeds. “That is audience engagement –a key measure and a key metric for anyone,” said Pickover.
‘Live video helps drive newsbrand subscriptions’
Even for more premium, subscription-based brands – a model being pursued by a number of news and magazine titles – live feeds have proven useful in “driving eyeballs onto that brand or that channel [and so] driving subscriptions back to their main brand”.
With such high demand for live content and a clear trend for video on social media, which provides an almost limitless roll of content at our fingertips, the goal for PA Media is “making sure we’re providing the content that can fill that gap for publishers”, said Pickover.
“PA will always move in the direction of the industry trends and the customer requests. The text and images side of our business will always be of paramount importance to our customers; it will always be one of the main things that PA does,” he added.
“But the strategy right now is placing more emphasis on video. For us it’s about saying as an agency: we provide trusted, accurate, quick copy and images of any story in the UK, but now our latest investment taking PA forward into the future is making sure that video is of paramount importance alongside those two mediums.”
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