Pivot 2 Video: Video Drift
Why all signs point to another you-know-what
A song to read by: “Finite = Alright,” by David Byrne
What I’m reading: “The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is,” by Justin E. H. Smith
Over the past twelve months, publishers from nearly every category have begun to prioritize the production of video content with a fervor I have not seen since the infamous, original pivot to video that plagued the industry between 2015 and 2017.
Back then, in large part due to video metrics Facebook shared about the number of people watching videos on its website, publishers fired vast swaths of writers in order to devote more resources to producing video content. Years later, reporters would discover in court documents that Facebook had vastly inflated these metrics, but by then the damage had already been done.
After clearing out their writing staff to make way for video teams, publishers soon discovered that the land of milk and video views Zuckerberg had promised them was barren. The investment in video failed — the viewers had never been there — and publishers were forced to admit defeat and begin the slow, humiliating process of undoing the staff overhauls they had only just completed. Hundreds of journalists lost jobs for no other reason than a managerial blunder, informed by faulty intel.
Now, the episode hangs around the neck of the industry like an albatross, a perpetual reminder in a pithy phrase of the dangers that come from taking strategic advice from social media platforms. And while “pivot to video” reflects a mindset more than a medium — it could apply to any investment that appears tangential to the core editorial product — it has haunted any new, significant push into video.
So when, in calls with media executives across the industry, I question the good sense of their new plans to invest in video content, they understand my skepticism.
Many sympathize — they remember the folly of their predecessors and the coworkers they lost to it. But they are confident, across the board, that this new push into video is not some ill-fated repeat of the past. “No,” they say. “This is not a pivot to video.”
Instead, although some of the underlying motivations are identical, publishers tell me they have reason to believe that the industry really is approaching a tipping point this time.
Pivot 2 Video: Resurrection
Technology has come a long way since 2015, enabling an ease of video consumption that was simply impossible years ago. Phones can load and play premium video almost anywhere, under any circumstances — a reality we now take for granted but one that certainly did not exist in 2015.
And, thanks to the ubiquity of streaming services, people have been conditioned to consume video on their phones, laptops and tablets without a second thought. These two factors alone make for a markedly different world of video access.
Along with the proliferation of the streamers came an abundance of ready-made digital video, meaning not only can phones play video anywhere, but also that there is no end to the number of videos you can watch.
It used to be that you had to hunt far and wide to find a clip from “Saturday Night Live” or a stand-up special that you could watch on my phone — now, the exact opposite is true: Production studios distribute video in a highly coordinated fashion, making it simple to find any video on any platform almost immediately. Somewhere, Quibi is rolling over in its grave.
Plus, there is the trillion-dollar acronym in the room: CTV. What the internet did to publishing, connected television is now doing to television. The CTV landscape is still in its infancy, but the opportunity is clear: Television — the largest advertising vehicle on the planet — is in the midst of an unprecedented technological upheaval. The gold rush is on, and everyone wants a piece of the action, including publishers.
Connected television, which will culminate in your television effectively becoming a computer, is blurring the line of what distinguishes video content from video programming. The primary beneficiary of this has been YouTube. The Google-owned video website was once where you went to watch videos online, but what happens when watching TV means going online?
Publishers have seized the opportunity — Condé Nast, in particular, latched on to digital video nearly a decade ago with the breakout success of the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen, and it has not yet relinquished its grip. New series from Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, GQ and Vogue live on YouTube as videos, but consumers watch them on their television at home just as if they were shows on Netflix.
At the same time, other publishers have doubled down on the blending landscape of video to take advantage of other gaps in the space.
Vice Media Group, for example, produces a full gauntlet of documentaries, television series and movies, and its content studio is now its biggest revenue driver by a wide margin. BuzzFeed Inc. debuted a slate of films set to premiere this year, while Vox Media produces series for Netflix itself.
Even publishers without the resources to produce their own premium video are developing the pipelines necessary to turn their intellectual property into video content. Rolling Stone and Texas Monthly come to mind here, but nearly every mid-sized publisher I know wants to spin up a business to turn their stories into shows.
All of these publishers also have robust YouTube channels filled with original video content, and they are only investing more in these avenues. A decade ago, could you have imagined that Condé Nast would produce a film based on a piece of short fiction run in The New Yorker? The boundary between publisher and multimedia production company has all but disappeared.
2 Pivot 2 Video
But there is one problem.
The motivations above are all compelling in their own right, but the most convincing reason for publishers to embrace video is also the most alarming.
Just as in 2015, when Facebook set the agenda for which publishers lived and died by its flood of traffic, today a new social media juggernaut has upended the status quo, and every other platform is scrambling to adapt. TikTok — the first truly video-centric social media platform in the U.S. — has eaten the lunches of Instagram and Facebook.
The platform is devouring its competition, and the Zuckerberg empire has responded with its preferred tactic: imitation. In a bid to retain users, Instagram has pivoted to Reels, becoming nearly unrecognizable in the process, and Facebook has heightened the visibility of its video content. TikTok, meanwhile, seems to launch a new product daily, pushing its competitors to the brink trying to keep up with its pace of innovation.
As a result, the three platforms — the biggest social media companies in the Western world — are racing to become the most addictive video app on your phone, and publishers have noticed.
Media executives explaining their redoubled emphasis on video always end their explanations on this note: that they must go where the audiences are. If the three largest social media platforms are all pushing video, then publishers feel forced to follow suit. Why make written content if no one will see it?
Publishers have learned a lot of lessons since they last tailored their strategies to meet the demands of the platforms, and every executive in the industry is making these decisions with a clear memory of what happened in the past.
Many of them assure me that this once-bitten forbearance will prevent them from coming to the same ruin they came to last time, but their logic sounds awfully familiar.
Have consumer behaviors really changed so much? Did we really just want video all along? I am skeptical — building on social media is, after all, building on sand — but we will all find out soon enough.
Some Good Readin’
— The only take you need to read on the Dimes Square debacle. (Kneeling Bus)
— The only take you need to read on the Uvalde shooting. (Texas Monthly)
— I spoke on The Addition’s podcast about my reporting on Vogue. (The Addition)
— And if you’re reading Medialyte, you probably will want to sign up for this. (Vox Media)
Cover image: "Landschaft,” by Arnulf Rainer