Round Table on «What Content for Mobile Television?»
by CARTOON (European Association of Animation Film)
- Bruno Bucher, Jean-Emmanuel Casalta, and Jacob Møllerour, specialists from the mobile industry, discussed contents for mobile TV at Cartoon Master (Digital) 2008. The discussion covered the current movement in the European mobile content business, including mobile technologies, economic challenges, and future scope for producers.
Bruno Bucher, Mobile TV Schweiz
Jean-Emmanuel, Casalta NPA Conseil
Jacob Møller, Kiloo
Moderator: Christian Davin
Christian Davin: Bruno Bucher, can you
explain what mobile television is?
Bruno Bucher: Mobile TV is not watching TV far
away from the sofa, it’s rather watching close up. The telecom industry does not understand mobile
TV as I do. For the telecommunication operators,
mobile TV is bringing the same TV on the mobile.
Until now the technology used to watch TV was
UMTS which allows you to watch normal TV on the
mobile. The new technology is called DVB-H. It is a
digital video broadcast signal spread out to a TV
signal. It’s a communication tool and interactive. We can make new services for customers: shopping,
downloading, action. People are not sitting on a
sofa.
We have two technologies. UMTS is unicast
and DVB-H is broadcast: I spread out the same
information from one point to many people. Mobile
technology is a limitation of resources: there is a
limitation in frequencies. The band does not allow
the signal to be delivered to millions of people.
We started with early adopters. They are willing to
pay for things that others don’t have. We are ready
to pay for content licences.
In Switzerland, the consumer pays Swiss Telecom
a subscription to receive 10 channels. My channel
is one of them. I do not receive money from the
subscription, but from the advertising I add to my
programmes. In future, I will also be able to have
income thanks to downloads.
Christian Davin: Will the quality of images
and sound improve?
Bruno Bucher: Yes, without any doubt. What
we can see is absolutely exciting. Swiss Telecom
launched an offer mid-May 2008 and the quality
was absolutely astonishing.
Christian Davin: Are you delivering UGC
(User Generated Content)?
Bruno Bucher: Yes, but you must have good quality
User Generated Content. We are currently looking
for 250 people in Switzerland to produce quality
content, like local journalists covering an event or
a concert. We would like to introduce interactivity
in a real life situation. We invited young people to
come to find a treasure in town. All these people
had a camera and they made live pictures that
enabled us to create a TV show.
Christian Davin: We talk of TV bundles, of continuous broadcasting, becoming available on mobile phones. In France, there are 60 million mobile phones in use, but there are only a small number of users who can receive this offer. This being so, the offer will still be proposed and the manufacturers are already designing new models that they upgrade quite regularly. We will see models capable of receiving this television increase in number.
Jacob Møller: We distribute video based content which differs from mobile TV because it is based on a pay-per-download model. People are selective about it. You have to navigate through the menus and download a particular content. You have to . be interactive.
Christian Davin: Today, Japan and Korea are the most advanced in terms of mobile telephony. In Japan, there are nearly 9 million subscribers to mobile television. In Korea, there are about 6 million. In Italy, in the last year, there has been an offer that has attracted some 600,000 people. Tests are being carried out with 9,000 subscribers in Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom. What is the situation in France?
Jean-Emmanuel Casalta: The situation in Europe
is very varied. What we have noticed is that there
are people who watch television on the mobile
phone. Whatever the specific conditions of the
Korean or Japanese markets, the fact is that there
are consumers who pay every month to watch
television on their mobile phone. For producers
of programme content, this is a potentially very
interesting market.
In France, tests were made that showed consumers
spend approximately 20 minutes per day watching
television on their mobile phone, which is a
significant amount of time. This amount increases
for consumers who commute using public transport. 20%
of usage takes place between 9 and 10
am, 25% between 12 and 2 pm during lunch break,
and 35% in the evening. Mobile television is obviously
considered another media, which adds to
the TV screens already present in people’s homes.
A recent study carried out by NPA Conseil allows us
to foresee the likely number of users at the end of
2012 being between 5.7 and 8.5 million depending
on the various scenarios.
To reach these figures, there are two conditions
that need to be met. First, there must be a wide
territorial coverage and the operators must invest
massively to install relays so that at least 30% of
the territory is covered by the mobile television
signal. Second, advertising could be problematic. It will be necessary to estimate the monetary
worth of the users. There is one element that is
very important: measuring audience on these new
media. Everyone needs to agree as to the systems
for measuring audience rates.
Christian Davin: Will mobile television
allow television channels to extend their
offer and help them survive in the highly
competitive world of Internet? Could this be
an opportunity for operators like Orange to
enter the television market?
Jean-Emmanuel Casalta: There is a process underway
that makes it inevitable that audiences will become
fragmented. In France, we had an extraordinary
situation with a dominant media holding 30%
of the audience rate. For some months now,
television is losing ground. The fragmentation
of the audiences has a number of causes. First,
television no longer has the monopoly for the
distribution of images: there is Internet, VOD,
electronic content. Other ways to access images
for example are by mobile television. In one day,
which will continue to last 24 hours, it will be
necessary to divide our time, depending on our
geographical situation, on our desires and on what
the different media will have to offer us, according
to the type of use that is possible at any given
moment.
It is imperative for the large television
groups to be present on all the media and all
the access modes to images. Mobile television
has the same criteria as Catch-up TV: televisions
need to re-incorporate the audience around their
programmes, while the fragmentation of the main
media is inevitable. Each time we launch a new
media, there are possibilities for newcomers to
disturb the game of the ensconced media. We
noticed this phenomenon at the time of the
launch of TNT. And this is what we will see with
personal mobile television.
Christian Davin: What are
the prospects for producers?
Jean-Emmanuel Casalta: We are dealing with
extremely fragile economic models. There will be
quite an important trial period. First of all, it will be
necessary to offer programmes that «deserve» to be
paid for viewing. There will not be enough means
to massively produce exclusive content for the new
media. Audiovisual and animation producers, who
supply the large television stations, are not going
to start massively producing for mobile television,
which doesn’t allow for the correct financing of programmes. So as not to disrupt their current financing
mode, it is likely that producers will re-use the
programmes they produce for regular television
and will adapt them for mobile television at a low
cost.
To start with, the content on offer for mobile
television will be revamped existing content, with
an investment in editing in order to find shorter
formats. We believe that short formats will be the
most used on this type of media. Animation programmes
have an advantage compared to audiovisual
products in general, thanks to their considerably
longer shelf life.
Christian Davin: Will the economic model
be free or paid for?
Jean-Emmanuel Casalta: I believe that it will be
paid for because we are in the world of telephony. In the world of Internet, it is very difficult to
receive paid subscriptions. The large majority of
content available on Internet is free or paid for by
others. Concerning mobile television, we are in a
universe that is paid for. It is not conceivable to
have a free subscription.
Also, it will be necessary to produce content for
this new media. Income will be generated by
including the subscription, advertising and associated
services (sales of programmes).
There are considerable costs: broadcasting, technological,
rights, …
Cartoon Master Murcia, Spain, April 2008
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.