Mobile Video's Final Frontier

Ray DeRenzo, senior vice president of product, programming and marketing for unicaster MobiTV, compared the evolution of mobile video to that of the cable industry — first basic cable was available only through a subscription, which later evolved to free basic cable and a cost associated with premium packages. The only difference, he said, is that the basic mobile service will rely more on ads than even cable.

“Right now, the subscription model works because you are still getting early adopters who see value in getting live video, mobile TV and [video-on-demand] content on their mobile devices, and they are willing to pay for that,” DeRenzo said. “As you want to try to get into more mass-market adoption, you have to think of ways to reduce barriers to entry. Ten dollars per month is a barrier to entry to some people, especially if you have to have a data plan on top of it. Ad-supported works if you have the eyeballs to monetize the ad inventory, but the way you get the eyeballs is to make the service lower-cost or free. Someone needs to be the first in getting there.”