It’s no surprise that adult content seems to be making money in the mobile video space. Indeed, the porn industry has been one of the early adopters of technology, whether it’s wireline or wireless, and has benefited from technological advances.
Color porn videos streamed to phones are a lot more interesting the black and white WAP stick figures of yore! (No, not based on personal experience!)
Italy as a role model
Ingrid Lunden writes in the MocoNEWS article that Italy was cited during the conference as an example of a successful cellular adult content market. One speaker says 80 percent of Three Italy subscribers watch this fare. Quite an amazing statistic, if true.
Richard Gale, the marketing director for Playboy, is apparently champing at the bit to do as well with its content as in Italy. “One of our biggest questions remains, how do you replicate the success we’ve had in Italy?” he says.
According to Tim Clausen, the director of wireless for Private Media, that offers so-called adult content, the company sells its wares in 35 countries via 80 operators, and revenues have doubled during the past two years, mocoNEWS says.
Experimenting with user fees
Adult content sellers also are exploring a variety of different business models. Gale says Playboy recently implemented billing across multiple platforms — cellular, television and the Internet — where purchasers use a four-digit PIN.
Purchasers pay a flat rate to watch the content on any device. “We’re going on gut instinct and taking a risk since we’ve had to make assumptions on usage for pricing,” Gale says.
Some speakers lambasted cellular operators for being greedy and or wanting to accomplish too much technologically. David Thompson, the content acquisition manager for music, video and mobile TV for Sony Ericsson, says that “If the operators were to fulfill their business case on streaming they would not have the capacity to support it.”
Lunden notes that no cellular operators attended Mocollywood so they didn’t offer an opposing opinion.
DRM difficulties
Content owners also are concerned about the variety of digital rights management policies and lack of standardization across Europe, the article says.
One speaker suggested a pan-European clearing house for DRM, but acknowledged the necessity of multi-country negotiations made that difficult.
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