Major media companies have their place,
but user-generated content could dominate the mobile TV experience.

Rhonda Wickham Editor-in-Chief

Millions of videos currently populate YouTube (and any of a dozen other similar sites). I believe these will make up the majority of mobile TV’s programming in the coming years.

Since the first discussions of mobile TV, operators and analysts have insisted programming will require short, bite-size programs or clips that allow people to fill those minutes waiting in line, between flights and during commutes. The videos found on these sites provide the volume and variety of short content needed.

I recognize that many media companies such as Fox and CBS are actively developing original or repurposed content for this mobile channel. However, I believe that programming will be but a small part of future viewing. True viewership will go to the legions of short videos created by average Joes. YouTube serves up more than 70 million videos a day with roughly 60,000 new videos added each day.

It is an eclectic mix of clips. Some of it is high-school-esque gross-out humor, some of it is catching people behaving badly and some of it is displays what people purport as talent. There are also lots of laughing babies, silly pet tricks, music videos, pranksters and wannabe comedians. Some of the videos reveal an opinion on some matter, a political position or simply a plea for consideration.

Operators need to be cognizant of the growing popularity of consumer content because it has the length, variety and genre mix they would like to offer. While some of the programming provided by traditional TV and film media is valuable for mobile TV, I think they will have a hard time financially justifying the cost to fill up the mobile space with original content beyond news, weather, sports and perhaps the top TV programs.

Of course, the TV networks and other media companies continue to fight hard to keep what they perceive as their rightfully owned piece of the mobile TV pie. But I think user-generated content is already beginning to overwhelm the space. And truth be told, many of the top programs offered by the networks are reality shows featuring average Joes and are looking more like user-generated programs anyway.

Recently, Les Moonves, head honcho at CBS, said: “Current technologically driven distribution channels will expand and new ones will open. But without compelling content, every new platform is an empty shell. Companies that can combine world-class content with powerful national and local distribution will have the competitive advantage.”

What might be world class to one individual could simply be boring to another. For instance, 10 million viewers have watched Chris Crocker’s YouTube video in which he pleaded for 2 minutes to simply leave Britney Spears alone. That number of “views” sometimes far exceeds the number of people watching bigger budgeted made-for-TV programming. For instance, Emmy-winning “30 Rock” barely registers 5.4 million viewers a week