Wednesday, June 5, 2019

What Changes Most in Era of Mobile TV?

Looking back on all the potential changes in entertainment video over four decades, the biggest changes have been the move to higher-definition images, the shift in screen aspect ratios and screen sizes, growth of on-demand viewing and explosion of content sources.

There has been effort to change the nature of content (three-dimensional content the most recent effort). Custom viewing angles and other interactive features have, from time to time, been seen as promising.

But the shift of video viewing to mobile devices is among the bigger changes.

The average U.S. adult will spend three hours, 43 minutes watching video on mobile devices in 2019, just above the 3:35 spent on TV. Of time spent on mobile, U.S. consumers will spend 2:55 on smartphones.

What remains unclear is precisely how the “mobile TV” business will develop. So far, the biggest change has simply been the viewing of content on small mobile screens, not a change in video features, interactivity or image formats.

A reasonable assumption, based on past developments, is that business model impact will happen around viewing time on the mobile screen. There has been some effort to create aspect ratios optimized for the vertical orientation of the phone, but many of us expect the big trend will simply be mobile consumption of standard content.

In that sense, usability of video streaming on mobile devices as well as TV screens is the biggest likely driver of changes in consumer spending. “I want what I want, when I want it” remains the single most important principle of the video entertainment business.

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