Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

In a television appearance in early June, Michael W. Ferro Jr., the chairman of the newspaper and magazine publishing company Tronc — formerly known as Tribune Publishing — made an astonishing claim.

“Right now we’re doing a couple hundred videos a day,” he said. “We think we need to be doing 2,000 videos a day.”

Mr. Ferro’s comments added to mounting confusion over his embattled company’s sudden rebranding. How could a newspaper publisher create nearly three-quarters of a million videos a year?

But as jarring as Tronc’s goals may sound, the company’s plan is far from novel. In pursuit of more lucrative video advertising and success on dominant social platforms like Facebook, a growing number of publishers have turned to technology that promises to streamline video production, sometimes to the point of near-full automation.

The market for this service is largely split between two companies, Wochit and Wibbitz, which both maintain offices in New York City and Tel Aviv. (Wochit also has an office in London.) Wibbitz’s customers include Bonnier magazines, Hearst, Gannett and the Weather Channel, which uses the service to create local news reports. Customers of Wochit have included Time Inc., CBS Interactive, The Huffington Post, Rotten Tomatoes and NowThis News.