GNM taps Rightster to launch Guardian Select Video, a syndication portal to monetize digital video

Guardian News & Media (GNM), the publisher behind Guardian.co.uk, Guardiannews.com and the Guardian and Observer newspapers, has now announced the launch of Guardian Select Video, in partnership with Rightster.

The new partnership will herald the launch of a private video syndication portal that’s geared towards distributing and monetizing its digital video portfolio across the Guardian Select publisher network.

Guardian Select constitutes around 150 blogs and websites globally, which are classed as independent but are curated and “editorially approved” by the Guardian. Collectively, the sites cover ten content verticals and reach more than 23 million people, figures used by the Guardian to help leverage its content with advertisers.

Rightster is a cloud-based video distribution and monetisation company that enables rights holders and producers, such as ITN and IMG to gain more control and visibility over their video distribution. It has a slew of existing partnership in place, as we’ve recently reported with YouTube for football rights and London-based television sports video news agency SNTV.

With Guardian Select Video, the UK media company is offering existing Guardian Select publishers a single platform to access Guardian videos, which incorporate a built-in embeddable player. The branded portal essentially gives the Guardian complete control of all video content distributed from Guardian.co.uk, and allows Guardian Select to drive revenues through video.

Growing trend

This latest move by GNM is in line with the general trend elsewhere in the newspaper sphere. For example, The Wall Street Journal is placing a bigger focus on the moving image – back in May it saw 19.7m video streams, a three-fold increase since the start of the year.

This can, in part, be accounted for by the expansion of its WSJ Live service to cover more platforms, including the iPad, Apple TV, Roku and Samsung Smart TV, though new programming and a growing focus on producing live shows from London and Hong Kong also helped explain this increase. It later rolled out a brand new WSJ portal too, as it gears up to position itself as a broader media content provider, beyond print.

Furthermore, The New York Times recently relaunched a larger online video player, while the Telegraph Media Group was one of the first customers brought on board for the AP’s online video hub.

The latest announcement was made at the Guardian’s Changing Media Summit, with Matt Gilbert, Head of Business Development at GNM, adding:

“We are delighted to announce the launch of Guardian Select Video. Building on our existing partnership with Rightster enables us to achieve seamless integration with existing video workflows and further enhance the Guardian Select proposition. By accessing the Guardian’s award-winning video content, Guardian Select publishers can offer an engaging experience to their audiences, increase earnings and further enrich their content.”

You can check out Guardian Select Video now.

➤ Guardian Select Video