The Billboard Mobile Entertainment Live at CTIA kicked off with a keynote by MTVN’s Greg Clayman (more on that in a bit). Now going on: an energetic staged showdown between the producer—Larry Shapiro, EVP, Business Development & Operations, WDIG—and the distributor—Jim Ryan, VP, Consumer Data Products, Cingular/AT&T, deftly moderated by Tom Wheeler, Managing Director, Core Capital Partners.
—Shapiro kicked it off with an explanation of what the content side is like. Not new but the point is made: imagine negotiating with Comcast over the pilot for Lost, then producing it for 300-plus different TV sets.
—Ryan: We’re doing ok but it’s not “excessive margins.” His point: the carriers have invested in the infrastructure—and they do all the back end. The carriers “take care of the ecosystem.”
—Shapiro: “You are definitely entitled to a fair return ... We wouldn’t do a deal wiith you if we didn’t think you were entitled to a fair share of revenue.”
—Ryan: “Trust me, I feel your pain. ... You’re our juice. Our people aren’t buying our content ... But we’ve got 62 million customers at AT&T Mobility .. That’s bigger than a lot of countries.”
—Shapiro: “I wish I could bottle that speech ... ‘I feel your pain but we’re the biggest carrier [so] I don’t feel your pain.’” He said Ryan wouldn’t be his first choice to face across the table on this issue. But he wants to see all the carriers remove a couple of layers from the process. 
Not the exact blow by blow but you get the gist.
Walled garden: A text question from the audience asks why the carriers haven’t learned from AOL’s walled garden disaster. Ryan’s on high ground here—Cingular is the most open major carrier: “I think we learned a lot .. I remind people often of that.”
Who do you think is right? A completely unscientific text message poll shows Shapiro leading 2-1.