ITN Source has won a competitive bid to supply 210 hours of content to Digital Images for Education. Scheduled to launch next summer, the initiative is financed by the JISC Collections, whose mission is to support U.K. education and research by delivering affordable, relevant and sustainable online content. ITN has also announced a similar deal in China and the launch of its seventh YouTube channel, with programming that targets book readers and provides marketing opportunities to publishers.
Through a London headquarters and additional offices in New York, Paris, Sydney and Tokyo, ITN Source represents over 1 million hours of footage produced by leading broadcast and news brands, including ANI, Fox News, Granada, Reuters and other specialist collections. To JISC, the media company is supplying footage that covers 25 years of iconic U.K. events—from the poll-tax riots and Princess Diana’s death to the Labour election win of 1997—and international news, such as Barack Obama’s rise to the U.S. Presidency. Digital Images for Education aims to enhance learning in the areas of politics, environment, arts, science and technology.
JISC has previously produced Newsfilm Online, Film and Sound Online, and the Education Image Gallery, all of which the company says have been successful. ITN Source had worked with JISC on Newsfilm Online; the media company also has its own education-media division Education Clip Library, which recently signed a deal with Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, China’s largest education publisher.
Separately, the company’s multimedia division ITN On has announces the launch YouTube channel Beyond Books, designed to become a home for book-related video content on the Internet. To launch the service, ITN has partnered with Penguin, Faber and Random House; the company expects additional participants to join the project. ITN On is also offering multimedia-production services to publishers’ interested in capitalizing on the new marketing venue.
Beyond Books’ launch edition features Time Traveller’s Wife author Audrey Niffenegger and a book-to-film analysis, which will be a regular feature, of “My Sister’s Keeper.” ITN is positioning the channel to help publishers take a bite out of the £2.5 billion U.K. consumer book market, expecting the addition of an interactive and community elements of the Internet to boost consumer interest.
This is the seventh YouTube channel launched by ITN On. Others currently attract over 13 million monthly viewers with entertainment, news, music and more niche content. According to the company, ITN On is the leading U.K. supplier of news and entertainment content to broadband and mobile platforms.