Mobile Internet Predicted Up in '09, But Not Ads

by Jack Loechner, Feb 23, 2009, 8:15 AM

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MEF recently releasesd its Top Ten 2009 Mobile Entertainment trends including the ‘iPhone effect' and greater pricing transparency for consumers, but predicts that mobile advertising will not "take off." The report notes that, though the $25 billion global mobile entertainment industry has weathered and prospered through hard times as well as good, 2009 will be a year in which almost a decade of investments begin to deliver returns.

MEF has identified what members see as the biggest trends facing the mobile entertainment industry in 2009:

• The ‘iPhone effect' -Mobile applications have emerged as a new content category and the mobile internet will finally come of age
• Greater value and transparency for consumers will help sustain demand in 2009
• Some delay in the proliferation of mobile advertising
• Telcos begin to acts as enablers for the Entertainment industry with services such as billing, authentication and zero tariff data
• The emerging dominance of services that operate at a multi-platform level
• The rise of ring back tones
• Social networking becomes an important driver of mobile entertainment consumption
• 2009 will be the year that mobile video really takes off
• Emerging economies will become an increasingly important driver for mobile entertainment worldwide
• A proliferation of touch screen devices drives discoverability and content usage

More about mobile entertainment, from a Nielsen report summarized by Mediabuyerplanner,  shows that content from NBC and CBS is among the most popular with viewers of mobile video, with many tuning in to watch hour-long dramas, a format that was assumed unpopular with mobile viewers. NBC is drawing the largest audience to mobile, generating 1.8 million mobile video streams. Of those, 1.3 million were for full episodes of shows like Heroes and The Office.

Traditional shows are popular because they're familiar, says the report. Made-for-mobile shows, such as those CBS has had in development, are hard to find because mobile web users are less inclined to search aimlessly. Still, CBS is continuing to produce mobile series, and has scored with short Hollywood news segments.

Steve Andrade, general manager of NBC.com, says that "Long-form is doing better for us than short form and... we're surprised... "

Nielsen estimates that 10.3 million mobile phone subscribers, 5% of the cell phone population, access video via their phone each month. M:Metrics' most recent survey shows that just 7.5 million users watched video in a given month.

"As smartphones continue to drop in price, and new entrants impress consumers," says comScore, "mobile internet penetration and engagement will continue to soar..."

For more about mobile entertainment trends from MEF, please visit here, or from mediabuyerplanner, visit here.

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