“Mobile TV urgently needs content” was the central message of the third Mobile Multimedia Forum, held during the Bitfilm Festival in Hamburg. Speakers from the mobile industry, international media companies and creative production discussed current services and plans to establish television-capable phones as a distribution channel. Most proposals still repurposed existing formats. Broadcasters called for original material but could not yet describe what it should look like.
Suzy Wang of Singapore’s Mediacorp Studios discussed experience from her market. Rights holders often complicated the transfer of existing television formats to mobile, while telecommunications operators demanded 60 to 70 percent of revenue, making cost recovery difficult. Wang recommended including mobile television during format development, designing content independently of any platform and building an appropriate distribution chain. Her example was a soap transmitted on television as twenty one-hour episodes and adapted for mobile as thirty three-minute mobisodes, each ending on a cliffhanger. Music CDs, ringtones, wallpapers and screensavers supplemented the mobile video. Despite the marketing plan and Singapore’s comparatively advanced mobile infrastructure, Wang said only around 3,000 users watched the mobisodes.
Nokia manager Kai Fröse reported strong interest in mobile television in parts of Europe. Studies in Finland, the United Kingdom, France and Spain found greater interest in mobile TV than IPTV. Respondents accepted an additional monthly fee of between €5 and €10 depending on the country.
Usage differed from conventional television. Evening-news peaks were less pronounced, with several smaller peaks during lunch breaks and immediately after work. People mainly watched while travelling, including on public transport, but also used mobile television at home, where a portable screen allowed viewing away from the living-room display.
Nokia’s research found that consumers expected good picture and sound, a broad channel selection, reasonable value, straightforward operation with full-screen viewing and an electronic programme guide, and combined multimedia functions. Fröse said frame rate mattered more than resolution: QVGA at 15 to 25 frames per second on a 2.4- to 2.8-inch display offered the best compromise. He regarded flat-rate pricing as essential.
Markus Otte, Mobile Product Manager at MTV Networks, stressed the growing importance of mobile distribution to broadcasters. MTV had attracted more viewers online than on television for the Live 8 concert in July, while young people owned more mobile devices than television sets. The aim was to retain audiences across screens. Alongside MTV Mobile, MTV Music, Viva and Nick, Viacom planned to launch Comedy Central as a mobile service in the first quarter of 2007. Advertising was scheduled for the following year, although its format remained undecided.
Manfred Neumann, Head of Mobile Services at ProSiebenSat.1 subsidiary SevenOne Intermedia, also described mobile television as strategically important. The company supplied twelve UMTS mobile channels to three network operators and regarded itself as Germany’s largest mobile-TV content provider.
Neumann expected mobile television to remain a snack medium with relatively short average viewing sessions. Entertainment would continue to dominate, and existing television programmes would require adaptation for mobile. He argued that the format needed strong television brands.
Despite the difficulties, Neumann expected mobile television to become a third screen and an increasingly important route for media companies and advertisers trying to reach younger audiences. That would require new advertising formats.
Ferhan Cook of London consultancy Any Screen Productions concluded that mobile television needed original ideas and formats to succeed. Beyond that consensus, the search for a defining application continued.
The forum’s first Mobile Multimedia Award went to “Foreplay”, an animated mobile series for young women. The expert jury cited its concept and multiple commercial extensions. Chooz Active Content of Israel produced the series as twelve 30-second Flash animations with voice-over. The format could be made comparatively cheaply, adapted to different languages, markets and platforms, and extended through products ranging from phone wallpapers to a feature film.
