Endemol plans inbound mobile video for Celebrity Big Brother

Celebrity Big Brother 2005, launching in January in the UK, could be the first TV show to feature inbound mobile video interaction with viewers, reports New Media Zero.

"Inbound MMS is okay but with video we can have a dialogue," said Peter Cowley from production company Endemol. "It'll be like video conferencing with the presenters. This won't be commercial but a case of adding editorial value."

In addition, the company believes that 2005 will be the year in which mobile video becomes a serious revenue generator for TV companies.

They have already sold more than 2m minutes of content this year from mobile video content in Italy, for Big Brother and The Farm.

He adds that mobile video may quickly replace MMS as broadcasters' mobile medium of choice, "MMS is too complicated and the operators haven't rolled it out well," he said. "Operators are making video on 3G so much easier for consumers."

Orange Playlist to encourage viewers to interact with the show with their cameraphones

A new weekly music television show that will showcase charts for mobile phone ringtones and music downloads is to be aired on ITV1 in a sign of the growing influence of both the mobile phone and the internet on music sales, reports the FT.

"Orange, France Telecom's mobile arm, and Endemol, the TV company behind Big Brother, have teamed together to launch Orange Playlist, which will begin showing on British TV screens in September. cf Orange invests in television programming with Endemol

The emergence of new ringtone and music download charts confirms the rising importance of these media, which are growing rapidly at the expense of CD sales.

In addition, Orange, which is part funding the new weekly music show, is hoping to use the programme to encourage viewers to interact with the show using their mobile phones by sending picture and text messages. Selected picture messages will be aired on each night's show.

The move is designed to stimulate use of picture messaging.

While the majority of mobile phones now sold feature integrated cameras, operators privately concede that the number of pictures being sent over their networks is disappointing.

Many users have been put off from sending picture messages because of high costs, difficulties in using camera phones or because some picture messages do not reach their chosen destination.

Shooting to TV stardom

Next month GMTV viewers will be able to get on TV just by using their camera phones, according to The Guardian.

"As the Big Brother housemates enjoy their 15 minutes of fame, broadcaster GMTV is planning to offer its six million daily viewers a slightly more modest prospect: five seconds of photo-fame.

Next month the breakfast TV station will become the latest broadcaster to enable viewers with camera phones to interact directly with the show through picture messaging (MMS). The best photos sent in will be displayed on-screen around editorial items such as "back to school", with viewers able to show off their children in their first school uniform to the nation.

"People want to see themselves on screen," says GMTV head of interactive Nog Sawdon. "We already have text messaging to screen, this gives viewers their chance to get on TV, to get their five seconds of photo-fame.

Giving viewers a way to become a visual part of the programme they're watching is an exciting prospect for viewers and broadcasters alike.

Other examples:

-- The first to take the leap was the BBC, back in April. Viewers of the BBC3 Live at Johnny' were encouraged to send in picture messages of themselves to be praised or ridiculed on the Theme of the Day section".

-- TV recently integrated picture messaging into its Sunday afternoon motorsport show Speed Sunday, filling the screen with images such as viewers' kids dressed in full formula one kit.

-- Endemol recently announced plans to launch soap opera built for MMS. The 16-week comic-strip-style series, FanTESStic, is set to launch in the next few months.

-- Mersey TV is planning to go one step further in the integration of MMS and broadcast media, with the launch of an MMS spin-off of Hollyoaks, developed with Opera Telecom. The series will use characters from the show, building on storylines from the TV series. The action will be portrayed, like a picture book, with a "slide-show" of five picture messages.

Related articles from MMS on Television category in Picturephoning.com:

-- Roundup on how MMS is being used on Television

-- Soap opera FanTESStic comes to UK

-- MMS Soap on Spanish Telefónica Móviles

-- TV Reality Show uses picture phones

-- An interactive TV channel where viewers picturephone shots and films will be shown

-- Jong-Zuid: First picture soap opera for mobile phones

Keitai Deka, The Cell Phone Detective

The hottest private eye in Japan fights crime with her cell phone, according to Wired

"The teen supersleuth is the protagonist of Keitai Deka (literally, "the cell phone detective"), a popular show on Japan's BS-i channel.

Every Sunday night, she unravels mysteries with the help of her superpowered DoCoMo smartphone. "

BBC TV show to feature viewers Pics

A new BBC1 TV primetime live show Johnny and Denise will feature viewers amusing MMS pics judged on air each week using a new picture message management system, reports 160characters.org.

Every week Johnny and Denise and the studio audience will pick their favourite photo. This week's Phone Photo challenge is in honour of silly hats in catwalk fashion, with the viewers invited to take a photo with anything on their head.

For more on how Television shows are using MMS, check out this category in Picturephoning.com.

MMS Soap on Spanish Telefónica Móviles

Spanish Telefónica Móviles has launched FanTESStic, an interactive series with real actors created exclusively for MMS, reports near near future.

"Each week, subscribers get three chapters of the mobile soap opera. Each chapter includes one MMS with five images, a text of the plot and music.

The series was imagined by Endemol and produced in Holland using blue screen / photoshop. The soap is about DJ Tess' last appearance on the island of Ibiza, where she falls victim to a strange crime." It was a dark and stormy night...

Related articles:

-- Launched on the Internet and closed in the late nineties, the Internet's first Soap, «The Spot» is back - on (Sprint) mobile phone.

-- Holland, the country who brought to television the first "Big Brother" reality show in 1999, innovated with the first picture soap opera in 2003, called Jong-Zuid.

"Jong Zuid" Winner of Ericsson Best Mobile Application Award Europe 2003

Jong-Zuid, the first picture soap opera with famous Dutch TV-soap actors starring in it - and now in it's 14 week, has been awarded the "Ericsson Best Mobile Application Award Europe 2003" at a ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland on Novembe r25th.

And Media Republic has started negotiations with various leading mobile operators and consumer brands for international roll-out, according to a company press release.

Related article : Jong-Zuid: First picture soap opera for mobile phones

An interactive TV channel where viewers picturephone shots and films will be shown

In an article in in Swiss e-ezine Largeur.com, Gabriel Sigrist describes 32-year-old Zurich based Dominik Keiser's ambitious interactive TV project, aimed at the SMS generation, to be broadcast by cable in Switzerland and on the Internet.

Keiser has submitted his request -- the project is called Elevator TV -- with the Federal Communication authorities (Ofcom) in Bern. He should get an answer within the next 8 months.

This new television channel is targeting the cell phone users aged 12 to 34, by offering to show pictures and films that the viewers will have captured with their camera and video phones.

"The spectators will be able to vote by SMS for the programs they want to see, chose amongst the different musical genres or sports programs offered. And we will encourage them to send us their own films, made with their camera and video phones or small DV cameras. We will select and show the best on this channel".

Jong-Zuid: First picture soap opera for mobile phones

Holland, the country who brought to television the first "Big Brother" reality show in 1999, is now innovating with the first picture soap opera, Jong-Zuid. The technology is not exactly MMS, but WAP-push, a function of most color-screen phones. It's sort of a "photo romantic" (at least that what they used to be called in the Netherlands, "roman photos" in French), a story involving love and romance told through pictures and read by adolescent girls.

What's interesting is that Jong-Zuid actually has famous Dutch TV-soap actors starring in it.

Viewers can either follow the episodes on the website or sign up for updates on their cell phone where they receive several times a day, pictures and a short text underneath describing a situation. See the demo online - in Dutch, but you'll get the message!

(Thanks Mitch!)

Roundup on how MMS is being used on Television

The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) claims to have become the first broadcaster in Europe to show MMS-messages from viewers on TV, with two thousand photos shown on TV this weekend, straight after the service was launched on Saturday, according to Europemedia. The debut took place in the programme Svisj, an interactive show where the viewers vote via SMS on which music video to play next.

Actually, -- for the last few months, VitaminaN, a show on Spanish CityTV, has been offering viewers the opportunity to send in their pictures with their text messages (cf «FotoChat» launched on Spanish TV). Viewers can participate in the «FotoChat» service by registering at cityweb.com and uploading their picture. Each time they send an SMS on the chat, their photo will appear automatically next to their own message on the TV screen. Developped by Random One, a mobile and cross-media marketing pioneer in Spain, they claim be the first to deliver true, live interactive programming on television via SMS.

Novel use of MMS and TV, tracked elsewhere on the Web and planet:

-- There was a reality-based adventure TV game show broadcast in China from March to June called The Wedding Race (cf TV Reality Show uses picture phones), where Siemens as a sponsor, provided the contestants with cell phones (S57) and detachable cameras. For each episode, both contestants and the show producers took photos of the competitions and the "behind-the-scenes" during production, but unlike the Norwegian show, they were posted online, not on TV.

-- A popular breakfast show in the UK, GMTV, launched an first MMS service on British television for two weeks in June, delivering Summer Food recipes to viewers' MMS-compatible handsets (cf GMTV launches first fully commercial MMS service).

-- UK viewers of reality TV show Big Brother, allows viewers to send pictures of the housemates with little captions stuck in to the message, via brand new FotoTxt (cf «Big Brother» on your mobile).

TV Reality Show uses picture phones

“The Wedding Race” is a twelve episode reality-based adventure TV game show, to be broadcast nationwide throughout China on 21 television channels from March to June of 2003, covering a potential television viewing audience of over 750 million viewers.

The show pitted five romantically-linked couples against each other in a variety of extreme sports and challenges for a grand prize of the house of their dreams in China.

According to an article in 160characters.org, Siemens is one of the sponsors of the show and is providing the contestants with a new cell phone model (S57) and a detachable camera with an integrated flash (QuickPic) so that the couples can communicate with each other, even adding voice captions to their pictures.