Will the Revolution Be Micro-Sized? Mobile TV Takes a Big Step Forward
If the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas a couple of weeks ago declared anything - besides an increasingly cutthroat battle between Google and Yahoo — it was that mobile TV is the emerging force in the new media marketplace.
Video iPod aside, everything from the Slingbox Mobile to Creative’s Zencast to the PocketDish was introduced at CES, all aimed at whetting the consumer’s seemingly endless appetite for downsized viewing. But with the small screen becoming even smaller, is all this product rollout merely a trendy reflection of our on-the-go culture? Or could it be a digital revolution packaged in a 4-6 inch device?
Spend a little time thinking about it and you realize: It could be both.
Content on mobile TV is primarily divided into two main parts: Downloadable clips and live television. While co-branded efforts from Virgin and MTV, as well as Apple and ABC, are currently underway to provide the former, other companies like MobiTV have taken the latter, more literal route.
A former technology provider for IT firms, the California-based MobiTV radically altered their business model in late 2003 to become a pioneer in streaming live news, entertainment and sports through cell phones. “Think of us like a cable television system for mobile phones,” implores company CMO Dave Whetstone. “We provide a breadth of content, and our real focus is delivering channels much like you’d get on your home TV. When you start our application, you go right to a live TV channel. You don’t have to select what you want first, then scroll around and pick the next content. When you want to switch content, you would change the channels just like you would at home.”
Since MobiTV’s current content partners include MSNBC, BBC News Now, and ESPN 3G TV, along with four exclusive music video channels licensed by giants like Universal, MobiTV does give off that at-home, channel-surfing feeling. “When we launched, we had 9 channels and now we’ve got close to 30,” Whetstone adds.
But while MobiTV’s $9.99/month service lured over 500,000 subscribers at the end of 2005, with Sprint, Cingular and Altel as its key wireless distributors, overall penetration has been somewhat sluggish. Some experts, including Tony Quin, CEO of creative agency IQ Interactive, see the amount of hype that’s been attached to the mobile TV medium in general as misplaced optimism—especially from an advertising perspective.
“It’s not a terribly immersive space,” Quin says, “and you’re not going to capture people’s attention for any great lengths of time. It’s giving people the information that’s appropriate for the time and place they’re in, people who will watch television on the bus or sitting in a park somewhere. But that’s not what’s going to lead the industry. It will always be a segment, but not a [really] important one. It’s a bit gimmicky right now.”
MobiTV’s Whetstone, on the other hand, argues that grabbing customers during their downtime (like when they’re on the bus) is precisely where the great opportunities lie. “The question we get all the time,” he says, “is ‘Do you think people are going to start watching TV on their phones instead of watching it in their living room?’ My answer to that is we don’t view ourselves as a substitute for the big screen. We view ourselves as a way to stay in touch with television while you’re on the go.”
Whetstone adds, “People are not particularly tuning in for a half an hour or an hour worth of viewing at a time. They’re totally doing it during the five minutes they’ve got downtime, getting an update on the news or on sports or to just listen to music videos. It’s a very different viewing behavior than you’ve got in your living room. When you’re watching it on mobile, you’re very engaged because the device is right in front of you and you’re also occupying a finite amount of time.”
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