LONDON — Online news consumers often watch timeline videos, raw videos and analysis of breaking news, but by and large it’s still hard to predict which types of news videos will do well, says Andrew Roy, Head of News at BBC News during a Beet.TV panel at the Beet.TV Video News Summit at the Financial Times this summer.

To date, the raw video from the Japanese tsunami in 2011 was the best performing news video on the BBC News site, Roy tells us during this panel session. Beyond that, a clear pattern has not yet emerged as to the kind of news videos that consistently draw viewers. “All of us are trying to find out what is beyond novelty videos that people really enjoy consuming,” Roy says in the session.

The BBC is learning on a story by story basis about the consumer appetite for news videos, though behind-the-scenes clips on how news is gathered are started to become popular, he adds.