Study highlights need for more innovative TV on mobile phones

The results of a new study, ‘Mobile TV – Attitudes to Broadcast on Mobile’, has confirmed the need for broadcast and entertainment brands to work harder to tailor their content to mobile phones.
The qualitative study by Red Bee Media (formerly BBC Broadcast) and audience research agency, iBurbia, aimed to research consumer attitudes to specially made or tailored mobile content compared to TV streamed to mobile phones.
The findings suggested that full length programming on mobile is not as popular as made for mobile TV because screen sizes are too small, opportunities to watch full length programmes on-the-go are rare and subjects preferred to watch full-length programming on the TV.
“We talked with a broad range of people in this study and there was significant interest in concepts that complemented TV viewing with extra and exclusive content on mobile phones. But the content had to be sufficiently compelling to be worth the effort and there is a fear of billing abuse, meaning that cost needs to be made clear,” said Nigel Walley, CEO of Decipher, which owns iBurbia.
Results also suggested that the most successful mobile TV will be marketed with a prompt on the TV screen and targeted to a specific audience. Participants in the study found any content over three minutes too long and anything over one pound too expensive.
“The recent Oxford trials confirmed that there is an appetite for ‘mobile TV’, but this research highlights how ‘TV’ for mobile is wildly different from the ‘TV’ of linear broadcasting. New rules for advertising, navigating and entertaining apply. We worked with iBurbia to find out what viewers really want to watch on their mobile phones. Red Bee Media has built a successful business in understanding consumers' needs in order to create and tailor content and communicaton for multiple platforms and formats,” said Catriona Tate, Business Director, New Creative Content at Red Bee Media.
(GB)