Associated Press Television News

The agency obtains footage from their own camera crews, arrangements with local TV broadcasters to redistribute their material, material shot by freelancers who sell their footage to the agencies, and on occasion footage shot by the public (such as the famous footage of the 2000 crash of an Air France Concorde outside Paris and the hijacked Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961, which ditched off the Comoro Islands in 1996) Footage shot with broadcast-quality cameras is preferred, but quality can sometimes come second to content or immediacy for an exclusive story.

The maintenance of a network of local bureaux by the agencies means that local staff with expert knowledge are on hand to capture footage in places where Western camera crews could be in danger. An example of this is the Kosovo War in Serbia during which most journalists left the country prior to the NATO bombing campaign. In addition, TV reporters who often do not have the budgets or expertise to carry with a full satellite uplink are able to use the local agency bureaux. AP has a department called "AP360" which specialises in providing on site production and transmission facilities either through the AP bureaux infrastructure or at breaking or set-piece news events. APTN managed to get a satellite dish and transmission gear into Banda Aceh, Indonesia, following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake before the region was closed to air traffic. This became just about the only live video feed point available for the world's media, and was used extensively by network reporters for transmitting their recorded reports, or going "live" on air into their news and bulletins.

Wherever viewers see the same footage on more than one news station, the chances are that it came either from or via a video news agency. There has been little published research into the work of television news agencies apart from a 2011 book which argues that through their agenda-setting role, they are an important, but mostly hidden, force shaping the global conversation about politics and international affairs.

Public relations services

APTN's corporate services division produces and distributes video news releases (VNRs), video-form press release designed for use on broadcast television, for businesses' public relations campaigns. APTN offers this service despite concern among journalists about some news broadcasters relying on VNR material for their news budgets instead of broadcasting their own original reporting.