Mobile-Only Simpsons Content? Woo Hoo!
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 9/13/2006 7:00:00 PM
Los Angeles -- News Corp. president Peter Chernin told a wireless-industry convention his company would produce original content based on Fox hit show The Simpsons for mobile phones and then “market the hell out of it.”
Chernin said as a CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment keynote speaker here that the content from the Fox comedy -- now in its 18th season on the air -- would come out of his company’s new investment in mobile-video producer Jamba (www.multichannel.com/article/CA6371086.html).
Fox said The Simpsons content that will be immediately available to mobile phones will be ring tones and wallpaper, and the initial streaming content will likely be repurposed, not original. In announcing News Corp.’s $188 million agreement to buy control of Jamba from VeriSign Monday, the media giant said Jamba’s expanded offerings would include The Simpsons Mobile, selling content such as clips and ring tones from the show.
As for the original content that Chernin said could be ready before the end of the year, he did not offer many details. Series executive producer James L. Brooks was in attendance, and he told a reporter afterward that those details were still being worked out. Brooks did indicate that the new originals would likely be shorter than the 22-minute episodes fans are familiar with from TV.
Chernin also told attendees that News Corp. wants “to sell content to 100% of your customers.”
“We are in this game in a big way,” he said, adding, “We’ll market the hell out of it, trust me.”
He cited as an example of News Corp.’s pioneering ways to monetize TV content on mobile a 10-second ad for Toyota Motor Sales’ Yaris that was featured with the recent launch of “mobisodes” spun off from Fox drama Prison Break.
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