Hold your horses: video isn't about to replace text - just yet

What a wonderful time to be alive if you're currently a journalist in the UK. This piece from the news organ I work for best sums up our current morass (nudge: it has a Game of Thrones reference). Looking further ahead, the waters are a touch more choppy. Facebook's announcement that it will give greater prominence in its news feed to friends and family on the social network over news media and brands dominated conversation at the launch of the Reuters Institute report 'The Future of Online News Video' in Canary Wharf on June 29.

Raising our eyes to the horizon, video in all its different formats seems to be 'The Future'. Younger people are increasingly consuming it more. Facebook's head of video in EMEA recently predicted that the social network 'will be probably all video,' 5 years from now. That disclosure sent a collective gulp among digital journalist colleagues in our newsroom at the International Business Times earlier in June.

But a quick view of this excellent report (authored by Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Federica Cherubini and Nic Newman) suggests the death of the written word has been somewhat exaggerated. It found that text for now is largely preferred over video for each of the 26 countries in the report. Preference towards 'mostly text' in the UK stands at 79%.

The survey data was taken from the Reuters Institute's Digital News Reports from 2014 to 2016. They are a barometer on the state of the journalism around the globe and are essential reading for digital journalists (read the latest one here).

But what is the conclusion of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism on online news video? Hold your horses on the death of text.

"Although we are likely to see considerable innovation in both formats and production over the next few years, it is hard to see video replacing text in terms of the range of stories and the depth of comment and analysis traditionally generated by consumers."

But clearly video is the way the world is going. Here are some key takeaways from the report. It shows that all kinds of news organisations have their own unique problems in either adjusting or making a mark.

"Broadcasters should be in the best position to take advantage of the move to video with a wealth of relevant skills, but in many cases we find them struggling to adapt to the new grammar of digital online video. By contrast, both newspapers and digital-born companies have had to build capacity and skills from scratch.

"Newspapers, in a period of retrenchment, have found it challenging to fund new investment and retrain a predominantly text-based workforce. Digital-born companies have been better equipped to take risks in new formats and distribution but many have become dependent on powerful platforms over which they have little control."

How to make money out of this remains an issue. Here was one further conclusion from the report.

"The monetisation of online news video remains the biggest challenge for publishers. On-site monetisation continues to focus on pre-roll ads, despite widespread acknowledgement that this is a poor user experience that is affecting growth. Off-site monetisation is also problematic with much depending on the outcome of various Facebook product initiatives. To overcome these challenges, publishers are creating sponsored or branded content but many are struggling to scale this approach given the often bespoke nature of video production."

Christian Bennett, the Guardian's global head of video and audio, is a person you should listen to. He said that some 70% to 80% of the Guardian's video is breaking news and that it was hard to get people to watch video over 5 minutes. He also made the very valid point that you need to tailor your video to the platform. "YouTube is subscription-based and personal. It's about building your relationship... completely different to Facebook."

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen summed up the existential question posed by author Nic Newman. "Are we essentially building up Facebook and YouTube's business when we invest in online video?"

Lots of challenges clearly lie ahead. It almost makes you want to immerse yourself in the mad, bad world of Brexit again. Almost. Here's a piece of content (a video) from recent times that doesn't involve financial chaos or hooliganism.