Soap on a phone

'The fine weather will continue for much of the day, although temperatures in the north will stay relatively cool.' All I need is a blonde wig, some cleavage and a pointy stick and my debut as a weather reader is complete.

I'm actually sitting in the office of Mobix Interactive, reading out a report that will soon be beamed into the ether for most people with a 2.5G or 3G phone to download to their handset. While it's all quite advanced, I wonder why I'm barking my script into a microphone that wouldn't look out of place stuck to John Motson's lip on a snowbound Third Division side's pitch on FA Cup third round day.

Licensed to thrill

Mobile video content is a burgeoning industry and network operators are still getting to grips with the possibilities. The big companies have spent billions on their 3G licences without having a clearly defined strategy of what they're going to do with them.

It's only now, with 3G phones becoming cheaper and more available and with companies such as Mobix hammering on the door, that the telecoms giants can take advantage of an instantaneous medium. 'The network operators need companies such as Mobix to provide high bandwidth content,' says Mobix CEO Lance Stevens. 'We can package premium live end-to-end video services that are rights cleared, edited, voiced, encoded and delivered directly to the user.'

So far, most of the content that consumers can download is factual: weather, news, sports. If you're on the 3 network, you can personalise your video content package to cover areas such as comedy clips, or even adult material courtesy of Playboy and Paul Raymond.

So Mobix, together with media strategists Jack Brand, have taken the next logical step: fiction on demand. The pilot for the first mobile soap opera is in the can, and the partnership hopes that Connections - the everyday tale of murder, betrayal and infidelity set in and around St Barabas County Hospital - will demonstrate the possibilities of the mobile medium.

John Hazell, a director at Jack Brand, says: 'We are creating a new category of made-for-mobile content. We've started with the soap opera because, whichever country you're in and whichever medium you choose, the soap is considered to be the most compelling of serialised programming.

'Billions are actively involved with soap characters and their story lines on a daily basis, and bringing this proven format to mobile phones is the next step in the development of the genre and the medium.'

Short cuts

Each episode will be about 90sec long, shot specifically for handset viewing where there is no room for ambiguity. Because it has been made for screens just a couple of inches high for viewers on the move, it's a short, sharp burst of mobile melodrama that gets straight to the point.

I watched it on a TV - and it was laughable (but still better than Hollyoaks). But when it was zapped to my mobile, it worked remarkably well - offering a snippet of entertainment with a cliffhanger that left me wanting more.

'We are kick-starting the video mobile market and proving to operators and networks that it's possible to make compelling programmes for mobiles that people will want to watch,' adds Stevens. 'To date, there have only been still pictures or text to tell stories.'

And in terms of revenue, the fourth screen, as it's becoming known, is also a potential platform for advertiser-funded programming and broadcasting. And that could mean big business, as well as quality portable content.