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MediaBuyerPlanner: While the potential for mobile video is said to be huge, the medium has been slow to develop - though content companies are continually experimenting with different forms - and a successful business model has yet to come into play.
An eMarketer study shows that the total number of global mobile TV and video subscribers stood at 40 million in 2006, and predicts that that number will grow to over 750 million in 2011.
But while short, multi-episode cellphone series are growing in popularity, advertising dollars have been slow to migrate to the small screen, writes The New York Times.
Warner Brothers, which recently created a mobile series based on a character from the television show Smallville, has said that it will create similar series in the future but that advertisers would have to be willing to pay to develop content. Sprint, which underwrote the Smallville series, was the only sponsor, and the deal was inked as part of an overall deal with Warner.
Ad dollars are migrating slowly - $421 million was spent on mobile phone advertising compared to broadcast television advertising which was estimated at $48 billion last year - because demand for mobile content is still low.
The Apple iPhone is expected to accelerate the rate of adoption, however. With its 3 1/2-inch screen and no keypad, some expect that Americans will begin to watch mobile content more readily, as their peers in Europe and Asia do.
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