Digital Hollywood, May 6, 2008–On Day 2 of DH, I attended a panel that looked at movies, TV and video as the entertainment and information that is “jump-starting” the mobile revolution. Moderated by Ralph Simon, chair emeritus & founder of Mobile Entertainment Forum– Americas, panelists included Playboy vp of new media Chris Petrovic; Versaly Entertainment president/CEO Matthew Feldman; MobiTV  vp of advertising and brand partnership Jack Hallahan; Nick Montes, CEO of Viva Vision.

Panelists discussed how they deal with content for both on-deck and off-deck distribution as well as international and domestic markets. The issues related to brand, advertising, content censorship, and lack of handset heterogeneity made the “revolution” appear to be anything but imminent.

Another view, however, would be that it’s a revolution alright, but a pretty messy one, as a variety of strong contenders pioneer the space. The revolution is being televised…but so far not too many people are watching.

Some of the strongest language came from Viva Vision’s Nick Montes who stressed that the on-deck business model is broken. “When you talk to carriers off the record in a bar, they agree, they know it’s broken and they’re part of the problem. But you’re talking now about millions of transactions going through those pipes and they don’t want to fix the business model because they don’t want to lose half their revenues. The growth has reached a standstill. The other thing you have happening which is a bigger area, is the industry hasn’t made it easier to buy. But you’re not seeing innovation because venture capitalists won’t invest in off-deck. There’s no money for innovation until the business model is fixed.”

Versaly Entertainment’s Matthew Feldman disagreed. “The emergence of off-deck is happening because carriers aren’t providing a service that consumers want,” he said. “Carriers are offering an inferior product. Sprint, V-Cast have had their same product for 2, 3 years and it’s time for them to modify it. I do believe as far as advertisers go, content does drive demographics.”

Carrier censorship is another issue for a brand like Playboy, said Petrovic who talked about how Playboy continues to have a more robust international business. “But it’s more of a brand issue than a content issue,” he said. Viva Vision’s Montes agreed that “we’ve had to adapt our programming to meet content standards” for Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers. As a result, Viva Vision is focused on off-deck, direct-to-carrier strategies.” In response to a later question about mobile telenovelas, Montes said Viva Vision had done some work in that direction (to produce telenovelas for mobile) but ultimately “didn’t pull the trigger” because the they didn’t yet “see a return on investment.”

Jack Hallahan, vp of advertising & Brand partnerships for MobiTV said that domestic has been the focus although they have a U.K.presence. On all the major Tier 1 carriers, MobiTV is populated with between 50 and 100 channels depending on the carrier. In the last year, said Hallahan, more than 50 percent of MobiTV’s subscriber base has come from women. He described the demo as split between the 39 year old “road warrior” with a smart phone and a six-figure income and the 22-year old college student with a flip phone from AT&T on a family plan. Versaly’s Feldman said his company’s content has mainly been “sexy girls” for the last two or three years. The network distributes 30 programs on six channels and to 10 or 15 countries outside the U.S. Action sports aren’t doing well anywhere but in Spain and Portugal.

What kind of content sets mobile TV apart from, say, YouTube, said panelists depends on the outlet. Whereas MobiTV specializes in linear programming, said Feldman, Versaly is aimed at the under-25 demo that watches a lot of video on the PC, but when not around the PC will watch those videos on the mobile device. “I don’t see last night’s episode of Lost or Desperate Housewivesas a big draw,” he said. “If Lost is a much watched program on mobile, there are six more days to the week [to program]. On mobile, it seems like you have to burn through content at a higher rate to retain your viewership.”

Hallahan agreed that the “short hit” video is a good idea, but that MobiTV hadn’t gotten down to that minute level. Feldman said Versaly is targeting the under-served female market with Fleur, with style & fashion and comedy for the female demographic. “We’re trying to identify the demographic,” he said. “It’s trial and error, and not much different from how Hollywood does it. Hollywood puts out horrible TV and after a few episodes, it’s gone. If after a few episodes, one of our shows isn’t doing well, we’ll pull it out.”

Playboy continues to “fight the uphill battle with the carriers,” said Petrovic. “We’re focusing our efforts of taking advantage of search and discovery, WAP sites. We’re not relying on carriers to make or break our business in the U.S. If they decide to do business with us, it’ll be a great addition.

Moderator Ralph Simon pointed out that “we see receptivity in proper reporting from the telcos. Fifteen percent of the content is not reporting, so there’s a hemorrhaging of revenue.”