Verizon takes mobile TV prime time

Verizon Wireless this week is launching the first mobile TV show developed exclusively for the U.S. market. The one-minute “mobisode” was written, shot and produced for distribution via the carrier's 3G network and handsets. It also represents the first time a TV studio, Fox network owner News Corp., has created new video content specifically for a mobile device.

Verizon and News Corp. claim the mobisode is a milestone in mobile content, which may not be over-stating it. It shows that major entertainment companies are willing to devote resources, money and talent toward creating something solely for the mobile format. The studios are willing to bet that the tiny screen of a handset can be an entertainment medium in its own right — a so-called “fourth screen” on par with the movie, TV and PC screens — not just an adjunct to wireless.

“We certainly believe that wireless is becoming a new medium for entertainment,” said Paul Palmieri, executive director of business development for Verizon Wireless. “We're targeting mainstream media and bringing it directly to subscribers. These mobisodes are a signal of what's to come.”

But the industry is also taking a risk. Video streaming is barely in its nascent phases. The repurposed sports, news and entertainment video streams currently available have limited audiences. The format of the short video clips optimized for a tiny screen may seem a bit arcane to consumers bred on living room TV. News Corp. and Verizon are gambling that they can spur the market for multimedia by creating an entirely new format of wireless entertainment. And while industry observers laud both companies for taking the plunge into these unknown waters, many of them expressed doubts as to whether the mobisode will be a success.

Risk or not, the potential of the handset is too great to ignore, said Lucy Hood, senior vice president of content for News Corp. She pointed out that there are 1.3 billion mobile subscribers in the world today, compared with 1.1 billion TV homes — and the growth in handset purchases is far outpacing that of TVs. “This is a growth market that we want to be a first mover in,” Hood said.

News Corp. has created three mobisodes, spearheaded by “24:Conspiracy,” a mobile spinoff of the immensely popular Fox thriller “24.” The other two shows — a reality show and a drama — however, are entirely new, created independently of any News Corp programming on TV today. News Corp. isn't just producing them like a standard TV series. Directors are shooting them in digital video and using tight close-up camera angles to allow for the facial expressions of the actors to show up on a tiny handset screen. It's rare to see more than one head in a frame at any given moment.

Most significantly though, each mobisode is only 1 minute in length. The format was designed not only to fit in with what Verizon and News Corp expect to be the watching patterns of mobile users but also the network's technological limits. Hood said News Corp originally planned on making 2-minute mobisodes, but after talks with partners Verizon and Vodafone, found that carriers are much more comfortable with delivering a 1-minute stream with consistent quality.

Verizon is promising to deliver the shows at least 15 frames per second over its EV-DO network, and while this kind of made-for-mobile content would seem to fall under the premium content category along with games, ringtones and other multimedia, Verizon is including these first three shows in its standard $15 per month Vcast package for no additional charge.

“Clearly, when you offer something for the first time, you want to expose it to the largest audience possible,” Palmieri said.

The rest of the industry is watching the launch very closely, waiting to see how the new format goes over with users, and whether the rest of the entertainment industry will follow. Phillip Alvelda, CEO of Idetic, the company behind MobiTV, said News Corp's interest alone shows that there is already serious momentum. Though MobiTV has nothing to do with Vcast's launch, he said News Corp's willingness to invest in a mobile-only format is impressive. Even if the first batch of mobisodes flop, the entertainment firms now seem committed.

“When we launched, you couldn't get the major studios to invest their brands or the production costs in this kind of project,” Alvelda said. “Clearly, the media companies aren't going to recoup their costs immediately, but it's testimony to the fact that they think this is a market they need to invest in.”

Producing a 1-minute show in digital video with unknown actors is a lot cheaper than producing an hour-long episode of “24” and paying Kiefer Sutherland's salary, but those costs are still significant, compared with what News Corp. can expect to generate from the initial handful of mobisode subscribers. In a repurposed model, content that normally airs on TV is merely edited and modified for the mobile screen. Tighter camera shots and larger graphic icons are used, but for the most part, it's what you see on TV. That TV revenue stream is where the studios make their money. Mobisodes' premise, however, completely breaks with that model since there's no traditional TV broadcast to fall back on.

In addition, the mobisode pre-supposes that people don't want to watch the same old TV content on their handsets — that they want something new adopted specifically for mobile lifestyles. But according to research firm A.T. Kearney, watching TV on their phones is exactly what users want to do. A.T. Kearney polled consumers on three continents and upon being presented with content options ranging from unique video composed specifically for handsets to repurposed content to basic TV streaming, consumers overwhelmingly reached for the familiar, choosing the brands and programming they see on their TV and theater screens, said Andrew Cole, head of A.T. Kearney's telecom and media practice.

“We don't believe that wireless is a brand new medium for entertainment,” Cole said. “The mass media content that you and I love is what people want to see on their phones. They essentially want to see their cable TV channels on their handsets. They want the familiar. They want CNN. They want ESPN.”

Cole said SK Telecom and its content partners in South Korea went to enormous expense in creating exclusive content for consumer services, releasing whole albums of digital music over their networks before they were available in retail stores on CD and developing “made for mobile” video content, only to discover its subscribers were tuning into the mobile versions of the channels found on Korean TV waves. While those channels weren't the exact same as their TV broadcasts — programming was edited, the picture adopted for screen size and the transmissions often on-demand rather than live — for the most part, those channels resembled traditional TV programming, Cole said. He added that there is a role for the mobisode and other original content in the wireless multimedia deck, but it won't displace the wide appeal of repurposed content.

“24:Conspiracy” might be the hybrid. It has original content, but it is also closely tied with its TV forebear, giving the subscriber something familiar and benefiting from the TV show's promotion, said Linda Barrabee, senior wireless analyst for the Yankee Group. While the power of the brand can't be underestimated, using that brand can also backfire, she said.

“You have a certain amount of expectations around a brand,” Barrabee said. “You don't want something to be completely different from a brand, otherwise users will be disappointed. At the same time, you want to have some differentiation, otherwise you're not supplying any original content. Content providers need to find that medium between the two.”

THE VERIZON WIRELESS SPRING LINEUP

News Corp. will be launching three mobisodes at Vcast's Feb. 1 launch. New episodes will air once a week, remaining available for streamed download for the duration of the week.

24:Conspiracy — A spinoff of the TV show “24,” the mobisode draws on plots from the original but with a new cast and script.

Love & Hate — A manipulated reality show, using actors as contestants that interact with the real world in situations defined by a loose set of parameters.

Sunset Hotel — A drama series compacted into 26 1-minute episodes.

Source: News Corp.