Trying to find audience motivations "We don't offer programming specifically tailored for the FM Keitai, but we think we will in the future,"says Katsuyuki To, deputy manager in the Digital Content Development Division at Tokyo FM. In the meantime, he says, they are actively trying different marketing and content strategies to see what will motivate the audience and produce the best revenues. Advertisers have said they wish to create custom ads inviting mobile listeners to press the "Sharp" (pound sign) button to launch the BREW applet, he explains, which could then bring up a custom sponsor campaign site. "We think our site is more valuable than competitors'," To added. For now, station announcers make regular announcements along the lines of "FM Keitai users, please push the 'Sharp' button to access our site and participate in the 'blankety-blank' campaign." Listeners can, for example, purchase Tokyo FM-branded CD-ROMs of favorite songs, not to mention a host of other branded products. The FM Keitai was six years in planning, and as of late April 2004, some 450,000 phones had been sold according to Tokyo FM. (Like Vodafone and DoCoMo, KDDI does not release official sales figures for any particular handset.) This is still a "small" audience, according to To, and he looks forward to hitting one million devices in use -- maybe by mid-2004 -- before starting expanded marketing programs. Not a fan of TV phones Perhaps it's to be expected, but To criticizes the idea of extending similar functionality to a TV phone. "The TV keitai will not be a success," he says, explaining that a mobile user can easily browse through an onboard BREW or Java applet and view sales promotions, special offers, marketing campaigns, etc., while listening to radio, but not while watching TV. He also anticipates a strong digital broadcast future in Japan: "Rich contents should be broadcast via digital broadcasting, not via the Internet. Mobile Internet should be used for feedback and sales." Despite Java, BREW, 3G data, and other high-tech phone advances, the ultimate means for delivering digital media to a mobile device may not involve cell phones at all -- and you don't have long to wait to see it working. Mobile Broadcasting Corp. (MBCO, or Mobile Hoso) plans to start commercial services in Tokyo on July 1, using a satellite launched March 13. The company was established in 1998 and shareholders include Toshiba, Korea's SK Telecom, Toyota Motor, NTT Data, The Nikkei, Tokyo FM, Nikkei Radio Broadcasting, The Mainichi Shimbun, NHK, and Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), among many others -- but not including market-leading carrier NTT DoCoMo, who possibly sees Mobile Hoso's plans as a 3G-killing competitor to terrestrial cellular services. Subscription fees not announced The broadcaster will start with seven video and 30 audio channels, plus a data service, delivered to a portable dedicated terminal made by Toshiba. Expected battery life is around two hours for now and this should increase significantly with new chip technology due on the market in 2005; battery life is not a problem for in-auto use. Planned video channels include an in-house MBCO channel, with service information, short content, and documentaries; a 24-hour news feed; sports; business; music; entertainment; and a racing channel. Audio will include Hit Charts, Decades, J-Pop, Classic, Jazz and more. Subscription fees have yet to be announced, but a company representative said they would be "very low." Considering that home broadband access is now offered in Japan at a flat rate in the $18 to $22 range, MBCO may choose a similar price level. "People only want to carry one device," says Masaaki Igarashi, general manager in the Business Promotion Department at MBCO. He says the broadcaster will for now carefully select existing program contents from its media partners to match the device's profile and users' expected viewing habits. In the future, he'd like to see partners create custom programs. "People will want to use (their receiver) while moving or while outside so that means that programs should be different than normal programs," says Igarashi. He says that media content delivered to cell phones via terrestrial packet networks is not a competing business. Even 3G cell phones still experience significant interference and coverage holes, he adds, unlike MBCO's satellite-based service, which uses ground base stations to serve as "gap fillers" if the satellite's signal were ever lost. Igarashi says he would welcome a cellular carrier as a partner in the joint venture. Cell site crowding still an issue Regardless of Igarashi's boundless enthusiasm, it would not be too difficult to fill a whole sumo stadium with cellco execs who would view MBCO's plans as a real threat to 3G. Cellular systems will always have to deal with trade-offs between voice and data, and cell site crowding is still a major issue for 3G -- a single 100-square-yard patch of Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district could easily hold several hundred mobile phone users on a Saturday night, all accessing the same base station to receive data and make voice calls at about the same time. Satellite broadcasting avoids this problem. The future may see digital satellite and terrestrial broadcasting being used to deliver media content, while cellular data channels are used for feedback, interactivity and marketing, since you can't send a signal back up to the satellite from a low-power portable device -- but you can send one to a cellular base station located a few blocks away. The ideal solution is, perhaps, a cell phone bundled with a satellite receiver. There's no reason why clicking on a hotlink embedded in a broadcast TV program -- beamed from a satellite -- can't initiate a response that goes back to a broadcaster using a Java applet communicating via 3G cellular. If the device is also bundled with an e-wallet (as DoCoMo and KDDI cellies will be by mid-2004), the cellular data channel will also provide a great way to pay for content or other products. Stay tuned. Time will tell.
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