Another mobile TV assumption is going by the wayside; namely, mobile TV viewers are mobile. NBC Universal's research on multiplatform coverage of the Vancouver Olympics found that nearly half the people tuning in to its mobile programming did so while watching the same program on TV. About 39 percent of the mobile TV multitaskers used a handheld device to find additional content, reports NBC. About 44 percent of them explained that a mobile device was easier to use than a computer.
"The idea that your mobile content needs to be framed in a way that isn't just for people out at bars, out at restaurants, but for people engaging at home was (surprising) for us, and it offers a secondary opportunity for us in terms of the synergies with TV," said Hayle Chun, NBC digital media exec, at MediaPost's Email Insider Summit. "For advertisers, we think that the opportunity is there for real synchronicity in terms of (TV mobile) messaging."
NBC also found that click-through rates were about the same for alerts sent to mobile devices as those sent to e-mail inboxes. NBC itself also created a Twitter page that garnered a so-so 80,000 followers, but Chun said it provided valuable consumer insight.
