Is full-length video the answer?

One of the more interesting content announcements to come out of the CTIA Wireless 2008 show was the news that when AT&T launches its MediaFLO mobile broadcast TV service in May, it will have one exclusive channel dedicated to long-form movies.

Sony Pictures Television will launch the channel, called PIX [1], and will deliver full-length films to viewers. The films will be available for one month and new titles will be added each week.  Most of these films will be classics, rather than new releases, and Sony expects people to watch portions of the film rather than its entirety.

I think it will be very interesting to see how this long-form video channel does and whether it's appealing to consumers. According to Linda Barrabee, program manager, consumer research, mobility at the Yankee Group, full-length video is one of the top things that consumers say they want to see on their mobile devices.

Of course, this isn't the first example of movies being delivered to cell phones but it is the first time that I'm aware of them being broadcast in real-time. MSpot offers a mobile movie service on Sprint Nextel's wireless network and on Bell Mobility's network in Canada. The service offers movies to the handset on a pay-per-view basis but they are only available for a limited time. At Bell Mobility, subscribers are charged $5.99 for the service, plus they have to have a subscription to the unlimited web browsing package.

That seems like a high price to pay to get a movie delivered to my phone. Like so many innovative mobile entertainment services, the success of Sony's PIX channel will hinge on the pricing. Barrabee says that according to Yankee Group's user study, pricing remains the primary barrier to mobile entertainment adoption.

But as Barrabee said during FierceMarkets' "The Newsmakers of CTIA" webinar, content owners aren't sitting on the sidelines waiting for carriers to solve the pricing, discovery and user experience issues associated with mobile entertainment. Instead firms like Sony Pictures and others are innovating and expanding the content selection.  --Sue [2]  

P.S. if you'd like to hear more about Barrabee's takeaways from CTIA, you may view the archive of "The Newsmakers of CTIA" by clicking here [3].