Fox Starts TV Production For Cell Phones

prostoalex writes "Broadcasting television to the cell phones, which few people were actually interested in, is becoming a reality pretty fast, as Fox started making mopisodes (one-minute episodes targeted specifically for the mobile phone screen) to be broadcast on Vodafone and Verizon networks. The Fox announcement timed perfectly with Vodafone launching a broad variety of 3G services in Europe."

Comments

1minute episodes ? commericals

[sPaKr]

I thought the correct term for a one minute episode was commercial. I cant belive people are going to pay for that.

Mobile hazard

[Lancaibheal]

Great.

Now I have to watch out for morons watching TV on their mobile phones while they drive their souped-up 4WDs in rush hour traffic.

Thanks, Fox!

Why is it Different in the US?

[Oyume]

I wonder why Vodafones in the US aren't like the ones here in Japan -- The newer phones receive regular broadcast TV, no fees or special equipment required. On your Vodafone you can watch anything that's not on cable TV. Pretty nice. But I just don't get the whole "download and pay" gambit in the WEST...

*shrug*

Re:Why is it Different in the US?

[BlastM]

_Not a troll_ just an observation.

I have never been to Japan, but from what I gather Japanese society is generally tech-profficient and consumers make educated decisions when buying electronics.

Apart from us geeks who are skeptical of big business at the best of times and paranoid at other times, western society will consume what the television tells it to, and is short-sighted enough not to realise that micro-payments add up quickly.

I'm an Australian, and I can see this happening right now. SMS and MMS has become a huge fad, as have mobile phones in general. Many young people now face debt problems after running up phone bills in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars.

Broadband internet service is well below basic for a developed nation, but that's mostly attributed to the reelection of the conservative federal government that has sold half of the telecommunications utility that owns all the copper phone infrastructure and DSLAMs and most of the outgoing internet pipes.

The population just isn't tech-savvy enough to force the market to be competitive, and as a result we are all fucked over, although only the geeks (and the farmers in the outback who can barely make phone calls) can see it.

Re:WTF

[erick99]

People are nuts. They want the tiniest cell phone possible, and then they want full motion/realtime video on it as well as a huge amount of memory for an MP3 player, add some circuitry for GPS, and whatever else. Do people really want to watch tv on their phone? Maybe this trend has more to do with people never being home because they have to or choose to work insane hours and also run kids back and forth and try to do other things as well. We are a Type A society I suppose. If it's gotten so bad that watching tv on a cell phone seems like a good idea, well, then, it's gotten pretty bad.