The scene veers abruptly from seduction to murder. In one of the shortest, smallest television premieres ever, a woman deftly snaps her lover's neck, then steals his identity to access secret government data.
The miniature version of the TV show "24" lasts just 60 seconds, and it unfolds on a two-inch cell phone screen.
The "mobisode" (short for mobile episode), adapted from the Fox series, makes its debut Tuesday as part of a new push by Verizon Wireless Communications Inc. to sell mobile-phone video service to subscribers for a fee of $15 a month.
Carriers have packed their phones with built-in cameras, calendars, e-mail, video games and Web browsers in recent years to get more money from customers willing to pay for extra features. Cell TV is the latest diversion that wireless carriers are marketing to mobile Americans who want to stay in touch and entertained whether they are waiting in a grocery checkout line or sitting at an airport.
'This is going to change people's expectations'
Sprint Corp. was the first to offer video, more than a year ago. Sprint would not say how many mobile TV subscribers it has, but analysts say several hundred thousand subscribers tune into live television or quick newscasts, sports reports and other video clips that are updated throughout the day.
Last week, Cingular Wireless LLC, the nation's largest mobile-phone company, launched its $9.99-a-month MobiTV service, which has 22 channels of television viewable on four models of color-screen, high-speed-Internet handsets.
Subscribers to Sprint and Cingular can watch live television from CNBC, MSNBC, ABC News, and the Learning Channel.
Verizon Wireless, which introduced its video-ready Vcast phone this month, does not yet offer live TV. But business travelers can download frequently updated video roundups of financial or sports news. Teenagers can watch music videos and made-for-mobile extras such as backstage interviews, said John Stratton, the company's chief marketing officer. In addition to the 24 mini-episodes of "24: Conspiracy," News Corp.'s 20th Television has produced two other drama series for the Verizon service.
"This is going to change people's expectations of what they can do with their phone," Stratton said.
A pricey service
Cell TV does not come cheap. A Verizon subscriber with a basic cell phone and a $35 monthly plan would need to buy the $200 Vcast phone, sign a two-year contract and pay $15 a month more for the service that includes unlimited TV and stripped-down Internet access. Verizon Wireless plans eventually to sell premium channels for a higher fee.
Cell TV is not a match for sitting on a sofa in front of a big-screen television. Programs downloaded and then played on the tiny screen can be crystal clear, but live broadcasts often flicker and stutter. TV viewing drains phone batteries faster than voice calls. And the prospect of mobile-phone addicts watching TV in restaurants or while driving raises questions of etiquette and safety.
But some early adopters say they are already hooked. Damon Morton, 28, a lawn service worker from Silver Spring, said his new TV-equipped phone is worth his $90-a-month cellular bill.
"I've just fallen in love with this," said Morton, who uses his phone to watch snippets of CNN, Fox News and sports, as well as to organize his schedule and play video games. "It's an all-in one."
For some, an opportunity
For the entertainment industry, mobile phones offer an opportunity, like the Web and video games, to cross-promote TV programs, CDs and movies. Eventually, cell TV might become another way to sell advertising, studio executives said. Mobile TV was a keynote topic at the annual conference of the National Television Programming Executives last week in Las Vegas.
"People waiting in line might watch it, or kids in the back seat of a car, as a quick alternative to the TV," said Jim Samples, executive vice president and general manager for the Time Warner Co.-owned Cartoon Network. "It's about snacks of entertainment."
So the Cartoon Network is developing characters suited for short-form entertainment, Samples said, such as Periwinkle, an animated platypus that stars in two-minute episodes that can be on cell phones, the network's Web site and before the feature film at movie theaters.
Fox's "24: Conspiracy" is a scaled-down version of the popular TV show.
High-price stars like Keifer Sutherland do not appear in episodes of the mobile TV show, which has its own cast and writers. After several months of experimentation adapting shows from 20 production companies for the mobile-phone format, Fox concluded that it had to develop original programming with closer shots and shorter scripts, said Lucy Hood, senior vice president of content for News Corp., who oversees Fox's mobile entertainment group.
News Corp. has also developed two original TV shows, "Sunset Hotel" and "Love & Hate," dramas about life in a trendy hotel and about relationships, to air in weekly episodes. News Corp. has a staff of about 60 people working on mobile-phone programming, Hood said. She declined to discuss production costs for the programs, but she said the company is paid for every subscriber to the cell TV service.
Not all entertainment executives are equally eager to jump into the new industry.
"You have to create content for this device, and you have to be realistic about what you can do," said Kevin Tsujihara, executive vice president of corporate business development and strategy for Warner Bros., which is experimenting with made-for-cell-phone programming. He said mobile video cannot include fancy special effects or a lot of movement. For now, Tsujihara said, it is mostly a marketing device, and not one that has a mass audience.
Mobile television is more advanced in Japan and South Korea, where high-speed cellular networks were built earlier, and where consumers adapted quickly to such services. In Japan, leading cellular provider NTT DoCoMo Inc. launched video service in 2001. It is now available to about a fifth of DoCoMo's 47 million customers who own cellular phones that work on its highest speed network, a spokesman for DoCoMo said.
In the United States, Sprint introduced the first cell-TV service in November 2003. It was followed by AT&T Wireless Services Inc., which launched its service in October, before it was acquired by Cingular.
Market researcher Yankee Group estimates there are 280,000 subscribers to mobile TV in the United States, mostly through Sprint's service. The number could reach 1.3 million by year-end and 10.8 million by 2008, Yankee Group said.
Early stage
"We're still at a very early stage with these kinds of services worldwide," said Linda Barrabee, an analyst with the Yankee Group. "I personally think there's a lot of hurdles. It's a question of what's the quality. When it comes down to forking out an extra $10 to $15 a month, if it's a slide show, that's not gonna cut it."
Since the introduction of cell TV, mobile-phone networks have improved, making them faster to download bulky files like video. Still, it takes more than 10 seconds to download a two-minute clip on Verizon Wireless's fastest network, available so far in the Washington area and 31 other markets. The company said it is looking for speedier download technologies. Cingular and Sprint are in the process of upgrading their networks this year to match Verizon Wireless's speeds.
The phones also have improved, with higher-resolution screens, faster processors, more battery power and software that delivers up to 15 frames per second, compared with the 25 to 30 frames per second of conventional television.
Bob Egan, president of Mobile Competency Inc., a telecommunications consultancy, said he has sampled cell TV and enjoys it for watching news from the road.
"I found myself in airports, catching CNN and sports updates, and it was a heck of a lot easier getting info using that than getting it in textual updates" which are hard to read on the phone, he said.
But Egan does not buy the idea that the cell phone will become the next venue for video entertainment. "I think it's still a technology in search of a market. The mainstream person carrying a cell phone won't make a tradeoff of battery life to watch videos," he said.
