We covered the launch of UK mobile Internet TV show THMBNLS back in January. A joint effort between 20:20 London, Incentivated and the Central Office of Information, it features 22 one-minute episodes pushing condom-awareness for young people. A report today indicates the experiment has not been a success.
The ad-funded mobile soap opera for the Department of Children, Schools and Families was available exclusively over mobile internet, via free download. According to The Register, the campaign cost £5m in government funds, but has only acquired 554 MySpace friends, 15 fans on Facebook and 3 YouTube subscribers since it’s launch.
From the original release:
Emma Cowan at COI commented, “It’s a really exciting project as it enables us to reach the audience in a powerful and personal way. Because it’s unchartered territory, it’s been challenging to work with so many parties and agencies to ensure that it’s free to the user, as well as get the word out to the audience to get them to sign up.”
Peter Riley, Creative Partner at 20:20 London, commented, “Thmbnls is cutting-edge, realistic and relevant to young people. Viewers can personally interact with the characters and the issues they’re facing in a way that’s not been achieved before now. This is taking mobile broadcast to a whole new level.”
What we think?
This story is not an “I told you so”, it’s just worth noting the channels that fail. There’s so much clamour around mobile TV this year that it’s important to remind everyone how things can go belly-up. This isn’t the first mobile TV failure this year, and I doubt it will be the last. Just throwing money at these kinds of project because they’re new and interesting isn’t going to get anywhere fast. Mobile TV has been a wildly unpredictable industry. I very much suspect that the road to success will be slow and careful, and will be littered with burning wrecks like this.
