Entertainment providers on board for wireless

LAS VEGAS--Well-known gaming companies and entertainment providers are ready to entire the wireless industry in a big way. That was the message conveyed to the attendees of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association I.T. convention in Las Vegas this week.

Expect Sony Entertainment to roll out a large number of entertainment applications next quarter, said Patrick Kennedy, executive vice president with Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment. The attraction for Sony is the ability to highly personalize its content on mobile phones. For example, customers may want to download screensavers that are from the Bewitched television show or sign up for a soap opera SMS information service to receive daily updates on what is happening on their favorite shows.

Jay Samit, senior vice president of EMI Recorded Music, said music on mobile phones will turn into a huge customer loyalty program for wireless carriers.

“We’ve proven on Direct TV that the music choice channel is the No. 1 channel,” said Samit. Consumers listen to the music choice channel about 17 hours per week because it’s commercial free, and they can choose the genre of music they prefer.

“We’ll try anything,” said Samit. “About 90% of our artists want to go along for the ride. People pay their phone bills, but the majority of music is stolen on the Internet.”

Downloading musical ring tones turned into a $1.3 billion business in Europe and Asia last year, he said.

Sega.com now has wireless gaming content deals with carriers such as AT&T Wireless, Altell, Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless.

“Our goal is to sign up with as many operators as we can,” said Fred Huey, chief operating officer and chief financial officer with Sega.com. The company’s goal is to create a U.S. model similar to what it created in Japan, where Sony sells a channel of games to wireless customers for about $3 per month. U.S. carriers today sell content from Sega.com on a per-game basis.

All of these content providers stressed their desire to allow both themselves and wireless carriers to make money. In the past, carriers and content providers have struggled over who gets what percentage of certain applications. Kennedy advocated a weighted payment scheme based on which company has taken the biggest risk and invested the most in certain applications or business structures.

“Our discussions with carriers have been fruitful,” Kennedy said. “We’re at the dawn of a new medium, a payment structure where consumers don’t expect things for free like they do on the Internet.”