According to research from Experian Simmons, fully 29 percent of cell phone owners today believe that their mobile phone will be the primary device for their entertainment needs in the future.
In fact, 18 percent of all mobile phone owners now watch video either streamed or uploaded to their phone, up from just 10 percent in 2008.
Those findings have definite implications for providers of video entertainment services and content. If consumers wind up behaving as they suggest they will, there will be additional pressure to create “TV Everywhere” services that give consumers the right to watch all of the cable, telco or satellite video they have paid for, at other locations and on their other devices, especially tablets, smart phones and PCs.
At the same time, the growing base of “mobile screens” and users will continue to create a bigger potential audience for over-the-top streaming services untethered from any existing video entertainment service.
Though the common view is that online applications and services will cannibalize existing video services, the rival formats (“over the top on demand” and subscription video) are likely to coexist for quite some time, once content owners decide to support the emerging on demand format more seriously. That would especially be the case if content owners strongly support the “TV Everywhere” offerings.