• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, February 1, 2008

Jeff Zucker, the president and CEO of NBC Universal--whose broadcast network has exactly two shows among the Top 20 Network Primetime Series (total households for the 2007-2008 season through 01/27/08), with one of them ranked 20th and the other being NFL Football--stood up at the crashing-market-preoccupied World Economic Forum and, referring to making content available on mobile phones, said: "It's actually not that important. We're obviously playing in this world, but playing in a small way."

This from the man whose official exec vitae includes the boast that "NBC Universal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment content companies, with unparalleled expertise in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience across a variety of distribution platforms." Uh, except mobile, I guess.

 But the truly frightening part of his bio is this line: "He and his wife, Caryn, live in New York with their four children."

How in the name of the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel can you have four kids and not see with frightening clarity that their lives increasingly revolve around their mobile devices, and that it is a matter of years--not decades--before they will watch most of what passes then as "TV" on their handhelds?

Less than a week ago, ABI Research said that "As mobile TV services expand over the next five years the total number of subscribers will grow to 462 million, driven in large part by the expansion of 3G networks, and flat-rate plans for mobile video. The build-out of mobile video delivery networks and an increase in the amount of available content will also contribute to the market's growth... Consumers are being increasingly enticed by better experiences through more powerful and larger screens as well as by a widening array of subscription options."

Naturally most of the growth will be overseas, since the U.S. has decided to become the world's back-water of online and mobile transmission speeds. It just pisses me off that the Japanese can get Internet reception 16 times faster than we can and pay less for it. ALMOST as much as it pisses me off that Time Warner wants to put a meter on usage so it becomes too expensive to download their precious little New Line movies. And that is to say nothing of Internet access through mobile phones, an area in which Japan is even further ahead of the U. S. But, I digress.

It was suggested by The Hollywood Reporter that perhaps el Presidente's comments were meant to pressure wireless operators into giving media companies more $ for making their content mobile.

But I suspect that some of this is a factor of Z's age. Nothing makes a Baby Boomer shudder more than the old chestnut about getting an unexpected mobile text message advertisement for the Starbucks he/she is passing at that moment. We can easily imagine our cell phones going off every 22 feet as we pass each new retail storefront. Moreover, we are confounded by the increasing complexity of mobile devices (hold up your hand if you have conquered all of the functionality of your iPhone). We look with envy at 13-years-old who have figured out how to find and download TV shows and movies to their handhelds.  It seems like a hopelessly complex undertaking--but only if you're old enough to know who sang "One toke over the line, sweet Jesus."

Folks our age often try to minimize the march of technology by figuring that if WE don't think it's important, well, it isn't. It happens with every generation. Remember how hard it was to get our parents to buy their first answering machine? Their first PC? Their first mobile? Their first digital camera? And so it seems el Presidente Z has chosen to minimize the onward rush of mobile as the future generation's platform of choice.

Let's hope he's not the one NBC Universal sends to the betting window.