MoCoNews coverage of Endemol at NapteMobile++

@Napte Mobile++: Endemol UK’s Mobile Experience

• Posted by James Quintana Pearce
• Mon 15 Jan 2007 02:47 PM

Rafat did the opening Q&A/Presentation at Napte Mobile++ with Peter Cowley, MD of Digital Media for Endemol UK. Most of it was very interesting presentations of shows that have little relevance for MocoNews, but there were a few interesting points that Rafat dragged out…
-- Cowley said that the new media audience wants bite-sized content that is new and fresh, and the real skill that producers need is to make that content available across all the platforms. So if there’s a successful TV show or mobile series (such as Get Close To The Sugababes) rather than just porting it straight to other platforms it needs to be repackaged to be suitable.
-- Endemol has a fund for investing in new media of 15 million pounds (US$29.5 million) which was announced six months ago. The reason behind this is that Endemol is good at doing big projects but not very good at being nimble in the marketplace and adapting to new technologies, so it’s investing in companies that are good at that—mobile, broadband and games companies. It’s good to see a major company recognize it’s weaknesses…
-- Some Norway shows indicated that “an audience that participated with a mobile show stayed with the show a bit longer than a passive audience member”, so interactive mobile TV is a good thing to target.
-- Cowley also gave some figures that indicated the broader reach of fr*ee content, with one show on broadband the downloads went from a few thousand to 24 million when it was switched to a fr*ee model. Big Brother downloads increased by ten-fold when it moved from an paid download model to a fr*ee, ad-supported model. That figure was in the six figures last year.
-- One of the major issues with made-for-mobile content is marketing and promoting the show. If the mobile effort is an extension of a popular TV show you can do marketing on the shows. With Endemol’s Sugababes effort it relied heavily on the carrier partner O2 for marketing. “Also in the show we had to find ways to get people to come back the next day… You really need a platform owner or distributor to get behind it and promote them in their community, and hopefully it will snowball as they tell they friends.”
Related stories:
--Interview With Michiel de Gooijer, Endemol
--Audio Interview: Endemol Plans For Tailor-Made, User-Created Content