When News Corp bought half of Jamba last year it was noted that the two companies would team up on content—for example, Jamster/Jamba would be the exclusive provider of mobile content based on The Simpsons. This has been in the works for a while now, but I’ve just noticed the price: $9.99 per month for six downloads. That’s the same price as Jamster’s normal plan, which offers 6 ringtones, 10 graphics & 4 games/apps from across the board. The Simpsons content will cover “made-for-mobile voicetones, wallpapers and polytones. Video is in the pipeline and the plan will also include EA’s game” reports Mobile Entertainment. That’s an astonishing price to attempt to charge for a single brand—$120 a year assuming the subscription is kept going. Jamba COO Lee Fenton is quoted in ME as saying: “The way we’re going to bring The Simpsons content to market in the US is an industry first, but one that we’re quite confident about”. Time will tell, of course, but if you are going to launch something like this you do want it to be around a brand as huge as the Simpsons, and you want to launch it at a time when there’s a lot of hype anyway—for example the launch of the Simpsons movie. However, in order for it to be worthwhile it needs to offer regularly updated and interesting content—which could be done with the mobile video on offer. Also in the company’s favor is the fact that they don’t plan to spend a lot of money on advertising, just direct people from other Simpsons efforts. If it is successful expect other big brand owners to follow suit—but the first comparison that sprung to my mind was the ESPN MVNO.
PocketGamer has a piece on the The Simpsons: Minutes To Meltdown mobile game by EA Mobile, which will be the only content available on operators portals.