Mobile operators will have to accept the growth of off-portal video services because of the limitations of their networks and their data tariffs, panelists said at the “Mobile TV and Video: The Establishment of a Platform: Content, Distribution and Commerce” panel that kicked off the Mobile Entertainment conference track Sunday at CES.
“The top ten 3G licenses in Europe cost 75 billion dollars,” said David Thompson, Content Acquisition Manager, Music and Video/Mobile TV at Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC). “Even if carriers could make that money back from mobile video, they wouldn’t have the capacity to do it. It’s vital for us to keep the carrier in the loop, but it’s just the practicality, and they know it. They just don’t have the capacity in their networks.”
Motorola’s (NYSE: MOT) senior director of entertainment at its mobile device business, Jason Rubinstein, echoed the sentiment that bandwidth was the biggest obstacle to mobile video, but said that it’s devices as well. Screen size is “hugely important” for mobile video content he said, adding that 2008 should see more devices that focus on delivering a better video experience, both from his company and other vendors.
On the effect of the ongoing Hollywood writer’s strike: “We’re at the mercy of content suppliers,” said MobiTV’s VP of business development, Ray DeRenzo, but he added that the company’s diversity of content reduces its dependence on new scripted content. “We’re seeing great pickup of live sports programming… 60-minute episodic content isn’t what people are consuming on mobile.”
Creating dedicated mobile content vs. re-formatting existing video content: Joseph Cantwell, Vice President of Marketing, Advanced Services at Starz Entertainment, said that company doesn’t do two-hour movies on mobile because people don’t want to stream that sort of content, but it makes one- and two-minute cutdowns of movies to which it has digital rights, or 30-second animated parodies and they’re very popular with mobile users. But re-editing existing content, and getting the rights to it, can be financially prohibitive, said Sony Ericsson’s Thompson, so it’s important to adapt the right sort of content. He said that movies don’t work very well on small screens, but that sitcoms work very well because of the way they’re shot and their audio content.
On considering mobile from the outset of the content creation process: Cantwell said that Mark Burnett, best known as the creator of Survivor, “thinks 360″ and in terms of creating multi-platform products from the outset of the content creation process. Content creators should tack a similar tack and think about online and mobile platforms from the beginning to save time and production costs.
What’s going to change in 2008?: GoTV Networks’ studio chief, Daniel Tibbetts, said 2008 will be “a year of preparation” for mobile video. While there are 250 million mobile handsets in the US, he said, only 61 million of them are capable of accessing and displaying mobile video, while just 11 million people subscribe to mobile video services. This year will see more people getting video-capable handsets, while video distribution will also increase and improve.
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