Mobile as the 7th of the Mass Media

Some day soon – within about five years – most phones in use around the world will be equivalent in performance to the iPhone today (screen size, data connection speed, etc.)


Look how quickly all personal computers were more capable than the original Apple Macintosh computer.

In addition, in our world, when a new cellphone is automatically replaced every 18 months, how quickly will many people stop replacing the old family PC that nobody uses any more. Moreover, recognize that while today the iPhone or Nokia N95 may seem like an extremely valuable gadget, after two generations and thus three years, they are the hand-me-down phones given to 10-year olds as their first or second phones, when we buy “superphones” that are far more powerful for our own needs.

What of the small screen and lousy keypad?

Yes, I hear that all the time. Again, on first glance, it is easy to fall prey to the misconception that cellphones would have “fatal flaws” due to the tiny screen and poor keypad. These are not fatal limitations by any means; and in both cases, there are far more powerful benefits to outweigh the screen and keypad; abilities that make the cellphone far superior for media consumption. The screen is also in our pocket every day and we look at it more than once per hour, all waking hours, on average. The keypad has less keys than a PC keyboard that is true; but the phone also has the camera – a powerful scanner – which gives it far greater creative as different from the internet as TV is from radio.

As different from the internet as TV is from radio

With its seven unique benefits, mobile as a massmedia channel is as different from the internet as TV is from radio. As TV was soon absorbing most of the content concepts from radio, cellphones will soon absorb most of the content from the internet. Whether services have already migrated to cellphones, with more internet access to USA-based services coming from cellphones than personal computers, as Telephia and Comscore reported in November 2006. Soon other webservices will follow.

Before long, as the content owners and application developers learn to create new, unique content for mobile, a vast new media opportunity will emerge. Already, music on mobile is almost five times larger than music on the internet. However, most music on mobile is ringing tones, ringback tones, and other such music services that would not even work on the internet or on an iPod.

1. Cellphone is the first personal mass media channel 2. Cellphone is permanently carried 3. Cellphone is always on 4. Only cellphone provides a built-in payment channel 5. Cellphone is available at point of creative impulse, enabling user- generated content 6. Cellphone is the first media with near-perfect audience data 7. Only cellphone captures social context of media consumption Seven unique benefits of 7th mass media

Much like on TV, we have reality TV shows and music videos and the CNN ticker. These are all broadcast TV innovations that would not work on radio (nor indeed, in the cinema). Yes, soon the time will come when media content and services on cellphones will be better than those on the internet. In addition, if you travel to Japan or South Korea or India – countries where the majority of internet access is from cellphones already – that is the case today. Content is formatted for the small screen as a default, as that is the predominant access device.

The Guardian newspaper reported on 24th May 2007 that the global value of paid content on mobile at 31 billion dollars was bigger than paid content revenues on the fixed wireline internet at 25 billion dollars worldwide. We have already passed the tipping point. The younger media has passed its older sibling in size. Moreover, mobile content revenues for 2007 reached 45 billion dollars worldwide. More devices, more users, growing faster; now already more revenues. There is no going back.

Audience Data Accuracy by Media AMF Ventures measured the relative accuracies of measuring audience data by the three major media channels; TV, internet and mobile in 2007 and found that: • On TV, the total audience data that can be captured is 1% • On the internet, the total audience data that can be captured is 10% • On mobile, the total audience data that can be captured is 90% Source: AMF Ventures 2007

Will not kill other media

Like we saw with the emergence of newer media channels, the new medium will not kill the older media. All seven mass media will continue. However, what I stress in my workshops, seminars and executive briefings all around the world, and at my short courses at Oxford University, is that mobile as the Seventh of the Mass Media is the youngest, newest, most far-reaching and most powerful. With seven unique benefits that cannot be replicated on legacy mass media, not even efficiently on the internet.

Here is where we have enormous opportunities. As recordings created global giants out of EMI, Warner Music and Universal; and how Cinema created a motion picture industry out of Hollywood, Bollywood, etc.; each dawn of a new mass media channel has created economic openings for new companies to establish global positions. We saw it again over the past ten years as the internet spawned billion-dollar giants out of Ebay, Google and Amazon. Now we are facing the dawn of another new industry. It will have its own creative and technical competences, unique to this medium, as different as it is to edit a newspaper compared to directing a live TV news studio. New competences will be needed and here the young, SMS-addicted Generation C for Community youth will be in the driver’s seat for inventing and mastering the new required professional competences.

Mobile will bring about a new media ecosystem and be fertile grounds for the new giant corporations of the next decade. Those companies will be built understanding mobile, its unique benefits, and services, applications and media formats that will capitalize on the new areas, will be built with the tools in this book. Most importantly, the eventual winners will not be those who only copy the legacy media; one has to “create magic”.

Only those who understand the power of mobile as the newest mass media channel will be able to share in its success. Just like those who understood interactivity and search on the web, or those who understood reality and celebrity on TV. I should mention that even though we have six newer rivals to it, the first mass media - print at 500 years - is still very healthy, and none of the seven is seriously at risk of ending as a commercial opportunity. So while the internet and the cellphone show very powerful strengths to cannibalize areas of the established five media, all seven mass media will co-exist for a long time to come.

With that, it is clear that mobile is the only mass media channel capable of replicating each of the previous six media, and mobile offers seven unique benefits. It will become an increasingly important media channel for all media content. Maurice Levy, the CEO of Publicis, the world’s second largest media company, put it very well in 2006 when he said, “In a couple of years, most of the information you share, most of the advertising you read, most of the messages you send, most of the music you listen to will transit through your cell phone.”



About the Author: Tomi T Ahonen

Tomi T Ahonen

The author of six books about mobile communications, Tomi lectures at Oxford University, advises Global 500 companies worldwide and lives in Hong Kong.

To learn more about Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media, please visit:

www.7thmassmedia.com