The Revolution In TV

Musician Gil Scott Heron was right. The revolution won’t be televised – TV itself is the revolution. Everywhere you look a sea-change: flat screen TVs, distribution over the Internet, distribution on the Internet, video on demand, TV on mobile phones…

When I was at O2 people within the company got excited by mobile TV because they saw a huge revenue stream in the offing. Unfortunately for them, few people think TV is a premium medium. Given the choice between paying to see the news or a soap while on the train home and waiting until they get home (where news is on a 24hr channel and the soap can be recorded on the PVR), where it’s perceived as free, and the option is almost always going to be the latter.

But as the TV revolution gathers pace, a recent survey of American attitudes towards mobile TV shows a classic early-adopter curve: forty-six percent of those who currently subscribe to Mobile TV are below the age of 35 and 65 percent are male. Overall, they are almost evenly split on watching general TV content vs. traditional mobile content and on seeing the whole show vs. a condensed version.

And what really focuses their minds? Price. Approximately 71 percent said “cost of service” was a top consideration in selecting mobile TV.

Go to the Comscore site for more data and information.