Half of mobile TV users pay for content

[by Mike Butcher @ MIPCOM] A spokesman from SFR, French mobile network, said today at MIPCOM that the customer experience of mobile video used to be a WAP style interface but they are moving to a “remote control” style appearance on the handset.
Some 50% of SFR customers are using TV over mobile – quite a huge number. And 50% are actually paying for some of the content. Live TV accounts for 60% of the video sessions. 40% of the content is video on demand.

The daily usage is similar to those of TV with audiences peaks after 8pm (Thursday through Sunday). Generalist, musical and Youth are the top TV channels. Oh, and something called “Sexy”. What on earth could it be?

SFR thinks broadcast and video on demand don’t compete with eachother on the mobile.

They’ve launched a DVB-H pilot in Paris win partnership with Canal+, Nokia and Towercast – there are 500 users testing it.

SFR specifically mentioned iPods, blogging and podcasting. They believe the younger generation is interested in “horizontal media” (no, not what you think) as in social media, blogs, etc. Guess what? SFR wants to encourage User Generated Content.

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