AV Specialist - Africa Edition Vol 91 - (Page 27)

Warning : session_start : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 9 Warning : session_start : Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent output started at /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php:9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 9 Warning : Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by output started at /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php:9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 10 would be too strong a term.” Hardly the strongest endorsement of the revenue potential. The situation was made more difficult to read with the number of free services on offer. Mobile operator, 3 said that its World Cup mobile highlights clips they can’t simply assume football fans have endlessly deep pockets. An NOP poll of UK subscribers commissioned by Olista found cost was a major consideration among users. 49 percent were dissatisfied with the cost. This can be interpreted one of two ways: either services were too expensive or the users didn’t perceive there to be enough value in what they were receiving. Interesting user experience This value equation also has to be weighed in the context of services Content Type Share Received World Cup text alerts Accessed World Cup news and information on the wireless Internet Downloaded a World Cup ring tone Downloaded a World Cup wallpaper Downloaded World Cup video clips Downloaded a World Cup game Watched World Cup content on mobile TV Uploaded World Cup pictures/images to the Web Uploaded World Cup video to the Web Placed a video call/Sent a video message Other received 3.6 million viewings or more than one for each of its UK subscribers. However, all of 3’s customers could tune in to watch the coverage for free, which pushed weekly TV viewings during the World Cup period to an all time high and represented a rise of 61% on the previous month. 3’s match highlights channel proved the most popular, with the equivalent of a full-capacity Arsenal stadium crowd tuning in daily to catch up on matches they missed or relive the action. ‘Berlin or Bust’, which saw host Sam Delaney shoot the breeze with celebrity guests and pundits from Ally McCoist to Kate Lawler, was also a hit, generating more than 630,000 viewings. 38% 29% 19% 15% 14% 9% 8% 8% 7% 5% 11% rated their experience as satisfactory, while an encouraging 25 percent of those questioned stated that they intended to make use of the service beyond the trial period. More than 50 percent of those questioned said that they found the quality of the TV images displayed to be good. Separate research from Argo group found considerable inconsistency in the user experience provided by World Cup services. In England’s first game against Paraguay, 3 was far and away the best performer, delivering a video clip of Beckham’s free kick within 90 seconds. T-Mobile followed 90 seconds later with a text alert, while one operator took twice as long over 6 minutes to provide news of the incident. Another operator failed altogether because the testers were unable to access the registration site. Short attention spans This reinforces industry experience of the basic rules for providing data to mobile customers. It is an environment where interactions are measured in seconds, rather than the minutes spent in from of the TV or desktop. Mobile users simply don’t have the time or correct conditions to consume services which demand their patience or constant attention. Those that see a bright future in sport on mobile TV take note. Taken together these mixed findings suggest that whether the net result of the World Cup has been to build momentum around mobile data is very much an unresolved question. An interesting spin-off from the first major sporting event to be shown extensively on mobile TV have been the programming and technical lessons learned. “To make football work in miniature we needed to do some tinkering behind the scenes with how the picture looks” reports André Lönne of Siemens in Munich: You don’t show shots that are far-away or fast moving. Codecs need to improve and we need to employ compression schemes that focus on specific areas of an image. Whether this level of quality is ultimately possible will depend on technical standards yet to be fully agreed upon in handsets and networks. The lessons from the World Cup will continue to be learned in the months and years to come but one is left with the feeling that we are a long way from the final destination in terms of mobile TV. Will sport on mobile TV ever successfully compete and, more importantly, take revenue from big screen TV? Or will it be complimentary, communication-driven services that ultimately drive revenues? Mobile TV is on the map “The 2006 FIFA World Cup has put mobile TV on the map, with the weekly viewing figures for World Cup TV peaking at over a million” says 3 Marketing Director, Graeme Oxby. “We hope that the success of our specially commissioned show, ‘Berlin or Bust’ will pave the way for new and innovative Mobile TV formats to meet the needs of the growing mobile audience.” What he doesn’t reveal is how 3 will make money from the service and what they learned from the free offer which could translate into a serious revenue stream in future. What we do know is that available to users in mediums other than mobile. As a driver of new handset sales, however, free clips have proved more their value. In Asia, where mobile TV is more established, sales of T-DMB handsets rocketed in the run up to the competition with 127 thousand units sold in South Korea alone. Sports rights holders will need to be alive to the additional benefits mobile companies can accrue from their content when putting a value on mobile rights in future. As for the user experience, this was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the post competition analysis. The NOP poll found 29 percent of people who used a World Cup service were ‘first time’ data users, persuaded to experiment by their desire to keep up-to-date with events in Germany. Clearly the industry’s marketing was persuading people to try new applications. However, the same survey found that 44 percent of customers would not use the service again. In Germany where an extensive trial was conducted, the picture was much more positive. The Bavarian Regulatory Authority for Commercial Broadcasting BLM who conducted the trial found more than half of the 200 Munich residents who took part rated their experience with mobile phone TV as good. In Nuremberg 37 percent 27 Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct /var/lib/php/session in Unknown on line 0

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AV Specialist - Africa Edition Vol 91

Table of Contents
Mobile TV set to challenge viewing habits
Planning for the multimedia church
Is Jesus the next killer app?
Will sports on mobile TV compete with the big screen?
IBC Awards for Innovation
SA doccie scoops Emmy

AV Specialist - Africa Edition Vol 91