Waiting in line to pick up her daughter Caitlin, Joan sees a message flashing on her cellphone. It’s a South Florida traffic flash from Local 10 News’ TraffiCopter10: an overturned trailer full of chickens has turned Oakland Park Boulevard into Old MacDonald’s Farm. She’d better take Atlantic to the doctor’s as the phone alert adds that there’ll be more coverage on the frenzied chicken fracas at 5, 6 and 11. Also, featured on the special entertainment segment tonight on the Local 10 News will be Bree, Joan's favorite character on Desperate Housewives. Would she like to be reminded later? You bet! She clicks “yes” and Caitlin hops in the car.
As an afternoon thunderstorm unleashes its fury, Joan touches her umbrella, grateful she got that weather alert from Local 10 News meteorologist Don Noe before she headed out the door.
There's a crowd at the doctor’s, so Joan starts to thumb through an old magazine when she remembers her phone. How did she do in the lottery? She presses a couple buttons and there following a quick spot from Publix about their fabulous two-for-one chicken sale are the results. Not bad… she won six dollars! That’s plenty of chicken!
Back on the road to pick up Duncan from math club. He's running late, so while parked, Joan and Caitlin click on mom’s phone. What happened on their favorite soap today? Did Jessica really say that to Trent! Look at the promo for tonight’s episode of Lost: Caitlin’s gotta see that… After your homework, adds Joan. But I’ll just click here and the phone will remind us when it comes on!
Duncan hops in and grabs the phone. What’s up with Shaq? He selects the Local10 SportsJam Update: Shaq’s knee is fine; he’ll be in the Heat line-up tonight… tune in for highlights. Check this out: a segment on 20/20 about Eminem with an exclusive clip from his new video. Sorry, young man, that’s past your bedtime. No worries, mom. I’ll just click this button our Tivo will record it. Joan and Caitlin look at each other, amazed. You can do that?!
Joan turns onto Federal. Look at all those chickens! They must have wandered here from the accident on Oakland. Duncan dials the phone while his dad comes home and flips on the Local 10 News: “We’re cutting live now for a special ViewerCam report from Pompano resident Duncan Wells with exclusive phone video of the chicken fracas in Broward. Wow, look at all that poultry!” “Yeah, Kristi, kind of like a chicken fracas-sea!”
While the U.S. isn’t quite ready for live two-way video calling, the last scenario is already commonplace on the BBC. Perhaps not the chickens, but the kind of direct viewer involvement that leverages the unique market position of local broadcasting. None of the other examples are blue-sky suggestions of what might be ten years down the road: all can be done today. For some the experience may be largely text-based, for others it can be a richer, audio and graphic-enhanced interaction with their local broadcaster, and for a few it already means actual video, with more to come very soon.
With little investment, the broadcaster can capitalize on its unique position in the media distribution universe—its extensive localized, timely content and its relationship with its viewers. The “third screen” of the cellphone enables the local station to extend that relationship beyond the living room into all facets of its audience’s daily lives. The cellphone's “mobile content” allows viewers to be reached where they are otherwise not viewing the local station’s product and getting its advertisers’ messages.
This mobile content is not merely promotional, as valuable as that alone could be. There are revenue-generating models that are being created today, including programming underwritten by carriers and handset manufacturers eager to drive traffic and attract and retain customers. The crown jewels for them, as for the local broadcaster, are in local content, and the highest quality, most frequently refreshed, biggest production value, talent-driven, brand-name content around is that produced by local television stations. The carriers will spend billions building out their high-speed wireless networks, and they need tens of millions of frequent-use customers—the local broadcaster’s audience—to make this investment back. Sprint, and Cingular don’t have the established, known personality, community-oriented emotional connection with their customers that local broadcasters have taken decades to develop. Beyond this business opportunity to be mined, revenue can be generated by the familiar models of advertising and sponsorship. Better, the telco’s direct billing relationship with its customers enables the broadcaster to engage in new forms of commerce: subscription and micro-transactional income.
The networked nature of mobile adds a further dimension to the one-to-many model of broadcasting: “superdistribution” or viral marketing. Cellphone users can forward the promos and updates to others who might be interested. Not only with all the advertising and viewer info included, but with the ability to establish a continuing relationship with these “virally-referred” potential viewers.
It’s a brave new world, wide open for broadcasters willing to take the leap.
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Member Comments
It seems to me that this is very attractive way to deliver proprietary content. How does one go from idea to actual implementation on something like this?
.........there is someiting here, substantively on broadband wireless transactional content, I am not sure the cultural code conduct which would drive this has been identified.
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Waiting in line to pick up her daughter Caitlin, Joan sees a message flashing on her cellphone. It’s a South Florida traffic flash from Local 10 News’ TraffiCopter10: an overturned trailer full of chickens has turned Oakland Park Boulevard into Old MacDonald’s Farm. She’d better take Atlantic to the doctor’s as the phone alert adds that there’ll be more coverage on the frenzied chicken fracas at 5, 6 and 11. Also, featured on the special entertainment segment tonight on the Local 10 News will be Bree, Joan's favorite character on Desperate Housewives. Would she like to be reminded later? You bet! She clicks “yes” and Caitlin hops in the car.
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