LAS VEGAS – Many agree that mobile video – as huge as it already is – would be far bigger if consumers didn’t have to worry about huge charges on their wireless bills and instead have to seek out Wi-Fi every time they want to watch more than a short clip.
So, American broadcasters have been spending considerable amounts of time and money to roll out digital over-the-air mobile television. Two major partnerships. Mobile 500 and Dyle, have emerged to lead the charge to convince local broadcasters to push their broadcast signals to the (Apple) tablets and smart phones of their viewers. An app from the Apple App Store, coupled with a USB dongle that comes equipped with an antenna allows viewers to receive, for free, OTA digital television signals in their areas. The app even has an option to turn the device into a DVR.
However, that tiny antenna and dongle doesn’t pick up the regular TV signal, Broadcasters must slice off a bit of their spectrum to send out a different mobile DTV signal with a new transmitter which costs in the $125,000 to $150,000 range, say those involved. Despite that, dozens of American TV broadcasters have made the leap, hoping it will lead to increased viewership, ratings and revenue. Besides, it’s not streaming, but a simulcast of the unaltered OTA signal, so legal worries should be lessened.
Fisher Communications, which owns KOMO in Seattle among its stable of channels and Hubbard Communications, which runs KSTP-TV Minneapolis and others, are part of the Mobile 500 Alliance and launched mobile DTV in those markets in January of this year. Fisher’s SVP business development Randa Minkarah shared some of the early data of its launch at a session and NAB Tuesday afternoon. The two companies distributed, for free, 750 dongles in Seattle and Minneapolis (where several signals are available via mobile DTV) and began to analyze viewership data immediately.
After a single news story about the new devices appealing for users to come forward, the response “crashed our phones,” said Minkarah and they were given out quickly. All viewers have to do is register with their age, sex and zip code. The companies found people used the devices early, often, and consistently. One viewer got up every day to start watching the news at 4:30 a.m. “which is viewing we not normally would have had,” Minkarah said.
Extrapolating the direct viewer data gathered by the app just in the month of February, Minkarah was able to show the potential of mobile TV to impact the bottom lines of local stations.
• Overall, the ratings adjustment for mobile viewing would add a ratings lift of 0.3, which doesn’t sound like much, but would return a 7% increase in revenue, or just over $1.2 million to KOMO.
• Since changing the channel with the existing mobile TV technology takes a few seconds, KOMO and KSTP decided to use that time to send an interstitial ad, rather than just offering a blank screen. That new ad time has the potential to earn an additional $425,000 in revenue for KOMO, Minkarah added. 3,100 interstitial ads were served in February.
• While viewership patterns were different in the two cities (Seattle folks 25-54 watched their mobile TV most often in prime time and Minneapolis more in the mornings and daytime), they were active users. In Minneapolis, where four stations are transmitting in mobile, people watched an average of 31 minutes per week. In Seattle, where just three stations are doing mobile, it was 20 minutes a week.
However, both the Mobile 500 partnership and Dyle already know one thing. People, especially, the younger demographic, do not like the antenna. “People want more channels and they hate the antenna,” said Erik Moreno, SVP corporate development at Fox. Consumers just want the app and for it to work.
So the two groups are attempting to get the antenna embedded in the tablets and phones or to create things like tablet carrying cases or ear buds with a TV antenna seamlessly built in. They are also pitching the service as a way for wireless carriers to offload some video bandwidth (they have a deal with Metro PCS in the States which offers it on a single Samsung phone with an embedded antenna, as a competitive point of difference versus the other wireless carriers) and also as a great way to get the word out when disaster strikes since TV stations are generally up and broadcasting while cell towers take hits and the nets go down when the big weather events happen.
And the next step? Get it built into cars – after the two organizations convince more stations to spend the money and start broadcasting in mobile OTA DTV.
It’s an interesting plan and the dongles are for sale here in Las Vegas, but will it work? “If we’re going to be successful, we need everybody to participate,” added Moreno. “We’re tantalizingly close to breaking the back of this thing – but also so far away.”
Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien is in Las Vegas this week covering the National Association of Broadcasters annual show and conference.
