Visnews
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Visnews was a London-based international news agency. It began as the British Commonwealth International Newsfilm Agency (BCINA) which was setup with help from The Rank Organisation when it closed its cinema newsreel operation. The original headquarters in School Road, Acton, were formerly a Rank Laboratory. The founder shareholder broadcasters were the ABC (Australia), BBC, CBC (Canada) CYBC (Cyprus) and NZBC (New Zealand).
Its main competitor at for the early part of its existence was UPITN- later WTN (which was taken over by APTN- AP Television News).
By 1992 it was owned by NBC News (37.75%), BBC (11%) and Reuters, until Reuters bought out the remaining shares of the company that year. In 1993 it changed its name to Reuters Television and its operations were absorbed into Reuters' global operations.
Visnews was one of two major independent television news suppliers, the other being Worldwide TV News (WTN). At its peak Visnews supplied international news material to 400 broadcasters globally.
In its early days distribution was mainly through shipped film and electronically via the Eurovision News Exchange. Later there were ad-hos satellite news feeds and in 1975 it started the world's first daily satellite news service - to the Australian Broadcasters.
It was also one of the first suppliers of news production to British Sky Broadcasting for its Sky News channel, commencing its contract in 1989.
Ronnie Waldman (ex BBC) was the first MD and Julian Kerr was the last Managing Director of Visnews. Their UK office was located in Park Royal, London.