Mobile news consumption is on the rise across the globe, but reaching international audiences with varying data plans can be tricky for video-heavy organizations.
Enter BBC News' latest experiment, launching a presence for international news on a chat app with Line, a free instant messaging service for video, text and calls.
BBC will distribute two push alerts each day in English and feature news updates on its Line homepage, a strategy the outlet has tried on similar chat apps with its WhatsApp account in India and BBC Hausa's BlackBerry Messenger channel in Nigeria.
"Receiving push alerts with heavy video files would be problematic [in those cases], so that's probably less the case for Line," as Line users have access to higher data plans compared to other apps, Trushar Barot, apps editor for BBC World Service and Global News, told journalism.co.uk.
This isn't the first time BBC News has experimented with short-form video distribution. Earlier this year, BBC launched Instafax, which features 15-second videos recapping the major headlines of the day. BBC's line experiment will be tapping into this same content but sharing it in chat form.
Via journalism.co.uk
IJNet Managing Editor Margaret Looney writes about the latest media trends, reporting tools and journalism resources.
Image: Screenshot of BBC News' Line account