The Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big

Louise Story has a lengthy article with some good comparative analysis about ESPN's programming for cell phones, writing:

... Underlying the interest in cellphones as the Next Big Media Platform is a generation gap: younger people use cellphones more than their baby-boomer parents do — and for a lot more than chatting. More than three-quarters of 18- to 26-year-olds use some type of data services — compared with 44 percent of the general population — and their time spent messaging, downloading content, watching video and surfing around the mobile slipstream is also higher, according to Forrester.  ¶  “For the younger generation, the mobile phone is their most relevant device,” says Dan Novak, an executive at MediaFLO USA, a cellphone video network. “They don’t want just clips. They want long-form programming, they want shows that are simulcast, they basically want a TV-like experience." ...

Link:  New York Times.

Comments

[John Proffitt]

As a Gen Xer myself, working in a public broadcasting entity, I can FEEL this graph every day.

I definitely feel like cell, TV and PC are closely related and just about equally important (each has its advantages and disadvantages).

I also can feel our TV (PBS) market is way, way older than me. We still run Lawrence Welk, for God's sake! And when we do TV pledge, a piddling amount of pledge comes in via the web. Radio does at least 30% online, and sometimes up at 50%. Clearly radio is younger.

Similarly, I'm the youngest manager in the company (if late 30's is young anymore) and I'm the only one with several key new technologies at home. Until this past winter, I was also the only manager with an iPod (or other portable media player).

Here are the two billion dollar questions, though...

[1] As time passes and each generation moves from the left side of the graph to the right side, will their media preferences shift with them in the same proportions? In other words, when I get to be 60 years old, will the PC still be the most important device, or will the TV take over my top preference by then?

[2] In what ways will the media / device landscape change in the next 30 years? Will some variant of IPTV come along? Will TV programming as we know it disappear, to be replaced with something new? Just how pervasive will on-demand digital media be by then?