February 2, 2009
CBS, NBC Shows Resonate Via Handhelds
According to Nielsen Mobile, CBS’ content is among the most popular in the burgeoning medium, as viewers are beginning to turn to mobile devices to take in their favorite hour-long soap, or even that week’s episode of CSI. MediaWeek reports
NBC is drawing the largest audience to mobile video, per Nielsen. According to the network’s internal numbers, this past fall NBC.com generated 1.8 million mobile video streams, 1.3 million of which were full episodes of shows like Heroes, The Office and even Lipstick Jungle.
Those sorts of numbers are upending conventional wisdom about mobile content—that it has to be short in length and shot with a tiny screen in mind.
“Long-form is doing better for us than short form, and yes we’re surprised,” said Steve Andrade, general manager of NBC.com. “But we shouldn’t be surprised, since we had the same thought online, and that’s proven not to be true.”
However, what is different about the Web versus the mobile Web is that users are far less inclined to search aimlessly, and thus they’re unlikely to find a lot of new options. “What we find is that discovery is a problem,” said Jeff Sellinger, senior vp of CBS Mobile. That’s why familiar, well-marketed shows like CSI break through, while made-for-mobile shows can struggle to get noticed.
Sellinger said the network is still producing original mobile series, and has scored with easily accessible shows like Daily Delivery, which provides short bursts of Hollywood news. (That show is nearing 1,000 episodes.)
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