At Islington’s Business Design Centre for the Mobile Entertainment Market 2006. It’s like a giant greenhouse, only much colder.From this morning’s keynote’s… Melissa Goodwin, VP interactive and telephony and creative director Toby Prosser from FremantleMedia: “The world’s largest production company, we like to say”. FremantleMedia’s mobile strategy is in three stages: repurposing existing programmes, developing brand extensions and creating new brands and types of content.
— Repurposed shows include X-Factor, Baywatch, Indian Idol and several classic kid’s shows including Dangermouse and Chorlton and The Wheelies. “We thought we could chop those up very quickly and make money out of that content,” said Goodwin. Channel4 commissioned some mobile content from Freemantle and that’s a traditional producer/broadcaster relationship: “Essentially what we’re doing is repackaging and redediting in short form and then Channel4 schedules it.” Another project is between The Apprentice, the BBC and Orange – FremantleMedia was commissioned to produce pre-transmission promo clips for the BBC and post-transmission PPV clips for Orange. The important element is “immediacy, access to this must-see content,” said Prosser.
— Building brand extensions: The priority is to work with best-of-breed partners. is looking to set up “multi-brand, multi-territory deals” so it’s more about reach than revenue at this stage.
— Original material: The debut series of X-Factor in 2004 was the first time FremantleMedia created made-for-mobile content. Goodwin: “We had a dedicated crew going round with the production team making content just for 3 customers – audition clips, dressing rooms, interviews – up to 30 clips each week. That was the beginning of made-for-mobile because it was so successful.”
New mobile-specific projects include FMX – a cross-platform project to explore content and applications that provide a framework for user-generated content, encouraging personalisation and participation. “It’s very far removed from our traditional role as TV producers because users are almost becoming producers,” said Prosser. “The area in which we as TV producers can add value is in giving structure and narrative to that content, but it’s a challenge for us to let go and let them [the masses] get on with it. There’s also the on-demand ‘Thumb Dance’ project, a joint venture with Mobliss that mixes library footage with commissioned content. That will be launching on Sprint network in the US only “in the very-near future”.
Another project is Mobile Idol, similar to the TV format but users send in footage of themselves singing.
What they’ve learnt: “Some genres and types of content translate better than others, production techniques for mobile are very different to traditional businesses, operators are beginning to understand what they want, particularly in the video space and – crucially – Freemantle is also beginning to understand how to generate revenue, and who from.
But the problems are educating broadcast partners how to produce for this new format, how to produce a genuine mobile-only brand and how to improve access to all this material for consumers. Goodwin: “We think we’re pretty good at repurposing and brand extension, but we’ve got a lot of lessons to learn on made-for-mobile.”
Cold. Am typing in my coat.
This article originally appeared in MediaGuardian.
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