Well known media consultant Terry Heaton headlines his blog post that “mobile TV is a minefield for everyone involved” because content providers want two revenues streams — from subscriptions and advertising.
He notes that with a variety of options, including free TV on the Web, consumers aren’t going to be happy paying for mobile TV that also includes commercials. I’m not sure about that.
On the one hand, we’re used to television commercials (certainly in the United States). Sure, we can use Tivo and fast-forward through commercials, but we’ve lived with commercials for decades, albeit not today’s incredibly huge percentage of commercials.
On the other hand, there are fewer commercials on Web TV programs, and just because we’re used to commercials doesn’t mean we wouldn’t prefer to eliminate them.
Will the OMVC premise succeed?
So far, mobile TV hasn’t come anywhere close to capturing the number of users forecast by analysts in the early days of the business (no — I don’t do projections). But I don’t think the presence of commercials is the main reason people haven’t been subscribing. There are many reasons, ranging from the cost of monthly subscription fees to poor video performance to small, crummy phone screens.
It will be very interesting to see whether the Open Mobile Video Coalition's premise succeeds. That group of broadcasters plans to offer free, ad-supported programs — the same as on “regular” TV — to specially equipped phones and other electronic devices.
At least the assumption is the service will be free. The Coalition has to convince cellular phone manufacturers to include TV receivers, and without subsidization by cellular operators — or any participation by the operators — the handsets could be expensive.
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