@ MCW: Data Pricing A “Bottleneck” For Mobile Content

[by Mike Butcher] Speaking at Mobile Content World in London Mathew Kershaw, head of interactive, MTV Networks, called for more reasonable content pricing on mobile. “The key issue is the cost of the data. To sell a game or a ringtone at 3 Euros, is easy. The big issue moving forwardis selling larger chunks of content for, say, 8 Euros. Content owners are put in the position of having to buying large amounts of data wholesale from the mobile carriers, so that consumers know exactly how much they will be charged. You don’t want to hit consumers for one amount on their phone, and then five minutes later, hit them again. This is critical around TV style applications.”
Chris Windebank, director, product development and mobile, Disney concurred: “We’d like to see more equitable revenue shares for content providers. The UK is better in these terms, but Europe less so. We are limited if the billing systems aren’t there on all portals. So we’d like one click off portal billing which works across all operators.”
Alisa Bowen, head of Reuters.com, backed this position and added that “Broadly speaking you have to match up the pace of innovation with the reality of marketplace. It’s a fine line between being innovative and out of step with reality. We need a foot in both camps. It’s easy to loose your shirt in investment in this space.”
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