@ Mipcom: Tips For Producing Mobile TV Content

(c) MocoNews

Even expert navigation by Yahoo's Mitch Lazar, VP business development couldn't steer this session towards any weighty conclusions - or at least any new observations. He launched with an excellent summary of the mobile TV landscape so far including how 3's business saw a 61 percent uplift since its FIFA world cup TV service this summer, Orange's TV service found that 70 percent of users were watching for more than five minutes and Vodafone UK has said its mobile TV revenues is outpacing ringtones. In all - mobile TV supplements traditional TV rather than replacing it. The consensus is now that the most successful mobile TV is made specifically for mobile, or at the very least re-edited for mobile. Two to three minute clips is always the template and MTV's production teams, for one, now commissions for TV, PC and mobile from the outset. MTV's Dan Whiley, international CVP said it's lucky for MTV that its young demographic are heavy mobile users. "It's a distinct advantage that we already understand that mobile audience. Some people say that MTV invented short-attention span TV but shows like Jackass and Barrio 19 work well in small chunks that people can get in and out of quickly."
– Hala Baviиre, services and portal content director for French operator SFR, said a partnership with MTV had helped target younger users. SFR packages 4 MTV channels and usage more than doubled in the first semester of 2006. Part of SFR's strategy has been to schedule different types of content for different times of the day in a similar way to conventional TV: kids' shows after school and sports at the weekends, for example. Sport has been another been a major driver for traffic - and is another example of content that works in short form. She made a plea for producers to create content specifically for mobile and said once they have that tailor-made content, they can deliver it quickly to their subscribers.

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