The Video Business Accelerator is a virtual, tuition-free, online immersive training program to empower news organizations to design and implement sustainable business strategies around video. With grant funding provided by the Meta Journalism Project, participating newsrooms get to build working prototypes and launch revenue-generating, audience-expanding video projects.
The program is designed for publishers ready to refine existing video strategies and grow their revenues by capturing new audiences, measuring the success of new initiatives with precision, and delivering their high quality journalism on different platforms.
Journalism today is one of the most crucial public services of our time, yet it is reeling from tremendous financial pressures. It is all the more important that newsrooms face the challenges head on by both producing innovative video and visual content, while also understanding the importance of sustainable business strategy around it. Classes focus on strategy development and refinement, sharing best-practice business cases of video content as part of reach and engagement strategies, and growing new markets and audiences.
Participants will first go through a 10-week training focusing on the business of video, after which they will apply for a grant to put their training to work on a video project over the following six months. Participating teams are advised by professional coaches throughout the program.
Our specialized teaching methods are expert-led and cohort-based, allowing students to learn from the best in the business from around the whole world while meeting colleagues in the region during weekly lessons. Synchronous lessons are coupled with small-group coaching and bootcamp sessions, giving participants a holistic, hands-on learning experience.
An Asia-Pacific cohort concluded in 2021, a Latin American cohort concluded in 2022, and a cohort of Publishers of Color in the United States and Canada concluded in 2023. So far, the program has trained 41 newsrooms. There are currently no plans for another cohort.
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