The news brand’s director of video Jon Lloyd spoke to Press Gazette about how The Sun’s growing strategic focus on video has paid dividends with audiences
Lloyd said The Sun’s video operation is growing “even more aggressively” than it had originally planned, with its video team growing over 200% since its strategy recalibration and still hiring for a variety of roles.
Its two main pillars, ‘Originals’ (sponsorable episodic formats for subjects such as lifestyle and sport) and ‘News’ (short breaking news videos and long-form news shows), saw total video views to Sun content double year on year in 2025, with December its biggest ever month.
The news brand has tried around 25 original formats, with 19 of them live right now. Half of these formats have been sponsored.
For Lloyd, the key has been “finding a niche, build a community, and the rest will follow. We don’t go out there going ‘we’ve got to make that because we’re going to sell it’. We go out going ‘that’s an amazing community that we can grow, and we know that the brands will come’.”
A particular stand-out series has been Fabulous magazine’s ‘No Parental Guidance’, which Lloyd called a good example of The Sun’s new “360 content model”.
“We do have a lot of stuff that goes video first, AI transcribed into text, journos work their magic, turn it into articles”, he said. “We might put out video first. We might put out digital first. We might hold for print. But those decisions are made as a three way point now.”
The news brand has also made significant strides in its sports, royal and documentary coverage, with its overall strategy attracting sponsorship deals with brands that have never previously worked with News UK.
Read the full interview with Jon Lloyd on Press Gazette’s website.
