Hunderds Of Channels In Mobile Phones!!

(Via Pondering Primate). Cableworld writes, "The Weather Channel's mobile content experiment has ended - Now it's a mobile content business. We went from thinking that wireless is a secondary and somewhat experimental platform, to a primary platform for us," says Louis Gump, VP, mobile products and services, for The Weather Channel Interactive. The growing number of handset devices capable of delivering data and video has convinced the network that it could generate substantial returns on what Gump calls a "major investment. The "lightbulb moment" for Burgess was the realization that there are a billion cell phone users around the world. "To me, that's a confirmation of the significance of the mobile phenomenon," he says
The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association estimates there were more than 182 million cell phone subscribers at the end of last year. Consumers spent $111 billion on mobile services in 2004, according to the Yankee Group. About 5% of that, or $5.5 billion, was spent on wireless data services, a figure expected to grow to $14 billion by 2008. Thirty percent of that data revenue will be generated from entertainment, the research firm predicts. That includes graphics, games, ringtones, interactive. Some of the biggest cable operators, including Time Warner Cable and Cox, have made no secret of their desire to add a mobile component to their voice, video and data bundles. Fears of cannibalizing existing revenue streams appear to be no deterrent. As Burgess at NBCU says, "You're really trying to reach viewers in places when they're not at home." Burgess is interested in working with cable operators to adapt mobile content to the larger screen."Cable is expert at packaging and subscription-based relationships," says Greg Ellenoff, director of voice product management at Adelphia. "[Mobile content] is great example of doing that." As the biggest operators incorporate wireless into their service bundles, mobile content likely will be included as part of the packages.