Only 4.5% of mobile subscribers tune in to Mobile TV. But that doesn’t stop this bevvy of mobile TV news coming at you from the CTIA show in Las Vegas:
NBC’s Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff had a bunch of things to say: NBC will create live video in support of the upcoming Olympics; it has inked a multicarrier deal to give AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Research in Motion subscribers access to more than 60 WAP sites including NBC, USA and Bravo; and may be interested in creating a Hulu-like service for mobile.
In the wake of MTV’s announcement Monday that it has secured a deal to put content up on Mywaves, sibling network VH-1 said it will offer a service that lets users chat with one another during broadcast shows via their mobile handsets.
Droplet Technology, meanwhile, says it has developed an all-software solution that lets users “create, edit, upload, stream and share original video content at full VGA/30 fps directly from their mobile handsets.”
Verizon says it’s added a bevy of new content, signing on with Univision Movil for Spanish language programming, News Over Wireless to deliver local news, CondeNet for video from sites like Epicurious and Wired, and gossip show TMZ for…well, gossip.
Fox Mobile Entertainment launched the aptly-named Fox Entertainment Mobile Network, which will feature content from hit shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, Nip/Tuck and The Dog Whisperer. (via newteevee)
I attended a conference on Mobile TV 3 years ago and sat through a lecture hailing Bad Girls on your mobile as a great leap in content delivery and entertainment. Heady times on the UK tech scene.
But on closer inspection this a market with huge growth potential, so far stifled by the networks reluctance to let any outside developers onto their portal/platform and a lack of decent content. When the pinnacle of content is football highlights, you know the content commissioners need a holiday.
The mobile consumer is prepared to pay for premium content unlike their web counterpart, the mobile consumer has a simple means of payment, by adding the cost onto their phone bill, one click commerce, unlike their web counterpart. The mobile consumer does not want to be served ads, unlike their web counterpart who is blind to them but understands they make the content free.
Not all mobile users are casual game users, nor wish to transform their smart phones into games consoles. Some of us want to be pushed highly filtered short form content that isn’t based on what our estranged wife’s cat had for dinner and our current location waiting for our surfboard at Heathrow Terminal 5 (I hasten to add that is not my life).
4.5% should be read as an opportunity.
