February 18, 2006
Warner takes TV, movies mobile
Warner Bros. said Thursday at 3GSM World Congress that it will start its own mobile Internet site - within three to six months - to distribute TV, video and even films to cell phone users -- a move that lessens the company's reliance on cellular carriers, reports Video Business.
"Warner has been selling through mobile operators, who put bits of content like ringtones and pictures onto their carrier "decks," or portals as they're known in Europe. Its most popular sellers have been content related to Looney Tunes and feature films such as Batman. It plans to continue selling that sort of content through the decks.
But now that technology advances have made it more feasible to offer video, Warner is treating its "longer" content -- TV and film -- differently. The material still will move over mobile networks, just not always through the operator portals.
... The move by Warner is a step into what the mobile industry calls "off-portal" distribution of content. As Internet companies like Yahoo! and Google spread to cell phones, off-portal distribution is expected to increase.
"Eventually, we want consumers to be able to search on their own and find Looney Tunes or Batman," Richardson said. "We don't want them necessarily to go through an operator."
Off-portal, also known as "direct to consumer," was a hot theme at the conference, which ended Thursday and featured a strong mobile-entertainment theme.
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