Associated Press Television News
Encyclopedia
Associated Press Television News, abbreviated as either AP Television News or APTN, is a global video news agency.
division of the Associated Press
. It provides many of the world's broadcasters
with a round-the-clock continuous feed of news, sports, entertainment and feature video content. Associated Press Television News Ltd. is a UK corporation owned and controlled by the Associated Press
.
Headquartered in North London
, AP Television News was founded in 1994 as Associated Press Television or APTV. They moved to their present headquarters in 1999 when APTV bought out competitor Worldwide Television News (WTN) and the WTN building and facilities were deemed more suitable than the existing AP resources.
Since its rebranding in 2005, the APTN name and logo has been dropped in favour of "AP Television News", featuring the red AP logo of the Associated Press
to emphasise its connection to the AP. However, many broadcasters still refer to the television organization as APTN.
. Many major broadcasters and networks
rely heavily upon APTN for major breaking news
from around the world. The company also provides specilalised "Broadcast Services" for its clients, such as editing, crewing or satellite feeds from news and sports events. Historical footage is also made available from its extensive film and video archives, which date back to 1895. It includes the film and video archives of onetime AP rival UPI's longtime newsfilm service United Press International Television News
, which was the original agency that became WTN.
APTN is based in North London
(in a former gin warehouse on the Regent's Canal
called "The Interchange" because its original function was to interchange freight between the canal and rail systems) with bureaus in 85 cities and 79 nations, including New York City
, Washington D.C., Paris
and Moscow
; as well as current-event regions such as Iraq
and Afghanistan
. It uses fibre-optic and satellite-based distribution networks to relay video footage to TV networks and newsroom
s. (Broadcasters based in London receive the APTN video feed by local terrestrial
circuits, known as "local ends," via the BT Tower
.
such as APTN (and Reuters
TV) typically do not produce programmes that TV owners could watch. Rather, they provide footage of an event with only natural sound and very loose editing. However, APTN does also produce a range of entertainment and special interest programmes that are provided "white label"
for client use. Agency customers, who are local and national TV stations, documentary
producers, cable television
news channels, and the like, edit the agency footage to suit their style, and add their own graphics and voice-overs before transmission.
The premise for a video news agency is simple: very few TV stations devote enough money to newsgathering to put hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of camera, editing, and satellite transmission equipment everywhere that news might happen. Video news agencies provide rapid response coverage and international reach for those TV stations.
The agencies obtain footage through a mixture of their own camera crews, arrangements with local TV broadcasters to redistribute their material, material shot by freelancers who sell their footage to the agencies, and on rare occasions footage shot by the public (such as the famous footage of the Air France
Concorde
jetliner
that crashed outside Paris
in 2000 and the hijacked Ethiopian Airliner ditching off the Comoros Islands in 1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961.) Footage shot with broadcast-quality cameras is obviously preferred, but quality can sometimes come second to content or immediacy for an exclusive story.
The maintenance of a network of local bureaux by the agencies means that local staff with expert knowledge are on hand to capture footage in places where Western camera crews could be in danger. An example of this is the Kosovo War
in Serbia
during which most journalists left the country prior to the NATO bombing campaign. In addition, TV reporters who often do not have the budgets or expertise to carry with a full satellite uplink are able to use the local agency bureaux. AP Television News has a department called "Broadcast Services" which specialises in providing on site production and transmission facilities either through the AP bureaux infrastructure or at breaking or set-piece news events. APTN managed to get a satellite dish
and transmission
gear into Banda Aceh
, Indonesia
, following the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake
before the region was closed to air traffic. This became just about the only live video feed point available for the world's media, and was used extensively by network reporters for transmitting their recorded reports, or going "live" on air into their news bulletins.
Wherever you see the same footage on more than one news station, the chances are that it came either from or via a video news agency.
and its relationship with more than 400 of the world's leading broadcasters to help businesses in their public relations
campaigns. Handled by its Corporate Services division, APTN produces and distributes video news releases directly into every major television newsroom in the world. A video news release (VNR)
is a video-form press release designed for use on broadcast television, either as a news item or a feature story
. APTN produced VNRs can let the world know about a business' new product or its launch of an international campaign. Because of its relationship with newsrooms around the world, the effectiveness of an APTN produced and distributed VNR can be easily tracked. Once APTN distributes a VNR, Corporate Services' personnel contact news editors to develop a report detailing when, where and how the material was used. APTN offers this service despite concern among journalists about some news broadcasters relying on VNR material for their news budgets instead of broadcasting their own original reporting.
for which it won the 2005 International Emmy for TV News Coverage, and coverage of French nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, foiled suicide bombings in Israel
, the return of Hong Kong
to the People's Republic of China
, and of the death of Pope John Paul II
.
About
AP Television News is the videoVideo
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
division of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. It provides many of the world's broadcasters
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
with a round-the-clock continuous feed of news, sports, entertainment and feature video content. Associated Press Television News Ltd. is a UK corporation owned and controlled by the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
.
Headquartered in North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
, AP Television News was founded in 1994 as Associated Press Television or APTV. They moved to their present headquarters in 1999 when APTV bought out competitor Worldwide Television News (WTN) and the WTN building and facilities were deemed more suitable than the existing AP resources.
Since its rebranding in 2005, the APTN name and logo has been dropped in favour of "AP Television News", featuring the red AP logo of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
to emphasise its connection to the AP. However, many broadcasters still refer to the television organization as APTN.
Services
APTN distributes video to its client broadcasters around the world, mostly by satelliteSatellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
. Many major broadcasters and networks
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
rely heavily upon APTN for major breaking news
Breaking news
Breaking news, also known as a special report or news bulletin, is a current event that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming and/or current news in order to report its details. Many times, breaking news is used after the news network has already reported on this story...
from around the world. The company also provides specilalised "Broadcast Services" for its clients, such as editing, crewing or satellite feeds from news and sports events. Historical footage is also made available from its extensive film and video archives, which date back to 1895. It includes the film and video archives of onetime AP rival UPI's longtime newsfilm service United Press International Television News
United Press International Television News
Successor to earlier UPI television news film operations, United Press International Television News, abbreviated as UPITN, was a television news agency, operating from 1967 to 1985. United Press International Television News and Visnews were the two largest and most important television news...
, which was the original agency that became WTN.
APTN is based in North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
(in a former gin warehouse on the Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal, just north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London....
called "The Interchange" because its original function was to interchange freight between the canal and rail systems) with bureaus in 85 cities and 79 nations, including New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Washington D.C., Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
; as well as current-event regions such as Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. It uses fibre-optic and satellite-based distribution networks to relay video footage to TV networks and newsroom
Newsroom
A newsroom is the place where journalists—reporters, editors, and producers, along with other staffers—work to gather news to be published in a newspaper or magazine or broadcast on television, cable or radio...
s. (Broadcasters based in London receive the APTN video feed by local terrestrial
Terrestrial television
Terrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or television antenna aerials...
circuits, known as "local ends," via the BT Tower
BT Tower
The BT Tower is a tall cylindrical building in London, United Kingdom, located at 60 Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia W1T 4JZ, London Borough of Camden. It has been previously known as the Post Office Tower, the London Telecom Tower and the British Telecom Tower. The main structure is tall, with a...
.
Use of video
Video news agenciesNews agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
such as APTN (and Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
TV) typically do not produce programmes that TV owners could watch. Rather, they provide footage of an event with only natural sound and very loose editing. However, APTN does also produce a range of entertainment and special interest programmes that are provided "white label"
White label product
A white label product or service is a product or service produced by one company that other companies rebrand to make it appear as if they made it.-History:...
for client use. Agency customers, who are local and national TV stations, documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
producers, cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
news channels, and the like, edit the agency footage to suit their style, and add their own graphics and voice-overs before transmission.
The premise for a video news agency is simple: very few TV stations devote enough money to newsgathering to put hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of camera, editing, and satellite transmission equipment everywhere that news might happen. Video news agencies provide rapid response coverage and international reach for those TV stations.
The agencies obtain footage through a mixture of their own camera crews, arrangements with local TV broadcasters to redistribute their material, material shot by freelancers who sell their footage to the agencies, and on rare occasions footage shot by the public (such as the famous footage of the Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
Concorde
Concorde
Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport . It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation...
jetliner
Jetliner
Jetliner are an alternative rock band from the USA. They focus on melodic piano based rock and have been compared to Queen and early Elton John, being heavily influenced by early 70s rock. Composed of Adam Paskowitz of The Flys, son of Doc Paskowitz, on piano and lead vocals, Jeff Kluesner on...
that crashed outside Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 2000 and the hijacked Ethiopian Airliner ditching off the Comoros Islands in 1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961.) Footage shot with broadcast-quality cameras is obviously preferred, but quality can sometimes come second to content or immediacy for an exclusive story.
The maintenance of a network of local bureaux by the agencies means that local staff with expert knowledge are on hand to capture footage in places where Western camera crews could be in danger. An example of this is the Kosovo War
Kosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
during which most journalists left the country prior to the NATO bombing campaign. In addition, TV reporters who often do not have the budgets or expertise to carry with a full satellite uplink are able to use the local agency bureaux. AP Television News has a department called "Broadcast Services" which specialises in providing on site production and transmission facilities either through the AP bureaux infrastructure or at breaking or set-piece news events. APTN managed to get a satellite dish
Satellite dish
A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive microwaves from communications satellites, which transmit data transmissions or broadcasts, such as satellite television.-Principle of operation:...
and transmission
Data transmission
Data transmission, digital transmission, or digital communications is the physical transfer of data over a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication channel. Examples of such channels are copper wires, optical fibres, wireless communication channels, and storage media...
gear into Banda Aceh
Banda Aceh
Banda Aceh is the provincial capital and largest city in the province of Aceh, Indonesia, located on the island of Sumatra, with an elevation of 35 meters. The city regency covers an area of 64 square kilometres and according to the 2000 census had a population of 219,070 people...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, following the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
before the region was closed to air traffic. This became just about the only live video feed point available for the world's media, and was used extensively by network reporters for transmitting their recorded reports, or going "live" on air into their news bulletins.
Wherever you see the same footage on more than one news station, the chances are that it came either from or via a video news agency.
Reporting
APTN also uses its global network of news reporters, videographers and producersTelevision producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
and its relationship with more than 400 of the world's leading broadcasters to help businesses in their public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
campaigns. Handled by its Corporate Services division, APTN produces and distributes video news releases directly into every major television newsroom in the world. A video news release (VNR)
Video news release
A video news release is a video segment made to look like a news report, but is instead created by a PR firm, advertising agency, marketing firm, corporation, or government agency. They are provided to television newsrooms to shape public opinion, promote commercial products and services,...
is a video-form press release designed for use on broadcast television, either as a news item or a feature story
Feature story
- Published Features & news :While the distinction between published features and news is often clear, when approached conceptually there are few hard boundaries between the two. It is quite possible to write a feature in the style of a news story, for instance...
. APTN produced VNRs can let the world know about a business' new product or its launch of an international campaign. Because of its relationship with newsrooms around the world, the effectiveness of an APTN produced and distributed VNR can be easily tracked. Once APTN distributes a VNR, Corporate Services' personnel contact news editors to develop a report detailing when, where and how the material was used. APTN offers this service despite concern among journalists about some news broadcasters relying on VNR material for their news budgets instead of broadcasting their own original reporting.
Significant events
APTN's contributions to world news coverage include live coverage of the Beslan school hostage crisisBeslan school hostage crisis
The Beslan school hostage crisis of early September 2004 was a three-day hostage-taking of over 1,100 people which ended in the deaths of over 380...
for which it won the 2005 International Emmy for TV News Coverage, and coverage of French nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, foiled suicide bombings in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, the return of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
to the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and of the death of Pope John Paul II
Funeral of Pope John Paul II
The funeral of Pope John Paul II was held on 8 April 2005, six days after his death on 2 April. The funeral was followed by the novemdiales devotional in which the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches observe nine days of mourning....
.