T-Mobile U.K. Mulls Over Ad-funded Music Video Service
New Media Age (sub.req) reports it has had a sneak peek at a white paper that reveals T-Mobile is piloting an ad-funded music video download service in the U.K. “We’ve done some trials where we were allowing customers to download free music clips in exchange for seeing a 15-second ad before and after the music clip,” Lysa McIntyre, head of beyond voice for T-Mobile, was quoted as saying. “That was received well.”
The article reasons record ad-funded download figures reported by rival operator 3 probably confirmed T-Mobile’s resolve to launch such a service in the first place. 3 recently reported 6 million streams of video content have been downloaded by 600,000 subscribers since April. John Penberthy-Smith, 3 marketing director, was quoted as saying: “We are now looking to improve our ability to serve more ads across the portal.” 3 is also reviewing music as potential ad inventory. Ad funding can be applied to video as well as other types of content, including music and games,” Penberthy-Smith said. “It’s something we’ll be looking at.”
Posted In: Entertainment, Companies, T-Mobile, Countries, Europe
Comments (0)
Jan 18, 2008 11:21 AM
As CEO of Ad Funding Music business, We7 (http://www.we7.com), we continue to see good evidence of the acceptance of ad consumption as part of a ‘barter’ for ‘good’ content. However we have to ensure that value to the consumer is never overlooked and ensure that there is sensitivity between the Ad usage and the content. Being open with the consumer of what the ‘deal’ is really helps acceptance of the ad funded model but the consumer has to know they have a choice in accepting content in exchange for time or money.
Trials like T-mobiles and on-going improvements as per 3 is critical to establish the eventual models that consumers will accept and support
Steve
CEO - We7