We’re Taking our Video Entertainment on the Road

Content Insider #956 – Screen Time

By Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com

“Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That’s us, lost in space.”  Vincent, “Collateral,” Paramount, 2004

First, we voluntarily rid ourselves of our pay TV connection – that was so cool.

Now The Telephone Company (no matter where you live, that’s what they’re called or worse) wants to eliminate the landline phones.

Okay, so we never use it and the only people who have the landline number are scammers and spammers, so it won’t be missed.

Actually, we should have ditched it years ago because everyone in the family has – and uses – their smartphone.

We’re not alone because according to Statista, more than 7.3B people use the versatile mobile device for their everything.

Despite the fact that 96 percent of the global population live in areas where mobile connectivity is available, it’s estimated that 3.1B people don’t use it.

Industry analysts attribute the non-usage to a combination of coverage gap and usage gap.

To plug the coverage gap and make service available to everyone, everywhere; the industry continued to invest in mobile infrastructure, adding availability to an estimated 40M people last year with the majority (75 percent) living in Sub-Saharan Africa.

We’re not exactly certain if these folks care one way or another, but it means that about 300M (4 percent of the population) don’t have mobile connectivity available to them.

Who wouldn’t want the mobile connection to the outside world and all of the “benefits” it provides?

According to GSMA (Global System of Mobile Communications Association), even with the available coverage, about 2.5B people aren’t using it.

Our daughter couldn’t understand why/how 31.3 percent of the people who have mobile access don’t have a smartphone and use it.

Sometimes it’s difficult for a Gen Alpha/Z person, who was almost born with a mobile device in their hands, to fully understand/appreciate that the device cost for many people is a major barrier.

Especially one who knows exactly how to act around dad every time a new iPhone is released that she really needs to get the new one to stay in touch with her mom and dad and … do “other stuff.” 

For many people around the world, mobile is the primary way people – especially in LMICs (lower- and middle-income countries) or about 84 per cent of the global population, use the mobile phone as their complete computing/communications tool.

Mobile devices are the primary, and in many cases the only way people access the internet in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and now account for 84 per cent of global connections.

Closing this Usage Gap – getting more people connected – will provide an estimated $3.5 trillion in additional GDP globally over the next five years. 

The industry is working aggressively to close the coverage and usage gap by continuing to build out the global mobile network, working with device manufacturers to deliver lower-cost devices and educating the population on how they can use the wireless network to improve their lives.

Of course, we’re just warming up because 5G is practically here and it’s gonna be so cool.

This time … it might be real!

We got our first 5G phone from AT&T back in 2018.

Couldn’t wait.  Had to be the first in our office for blinding speed and endless capacity.

Okay, so it didn’t work out real well, but AT&T had warned us.

The phone had this cute little 5GE identification on it, but we didn’t know until later that the E stood for eventually.

You could always tell when someone had found a 5G hotspot because everyone was huddled around sucking up all the bandwidth/speed they could get.

Yeah, a real pain (read marketing pitch) but things are better now.

As smartphones improved, the switch to 5G did happen and is now the driving force for the industry and a boost for many other industries.  

Today, 5G accounts for most of the connections around the globe and service providers are finishing their area build-out as rapidly as possible.

This year, one in four connections is expected to be 5G but 4G will continue to be the most widely used connection and it will take years for 5G to overtake and surpass 4G.

Greater China leads the 5G race with 29 percent of mobile connections using the new, higher-performance standard.

North America is a distant second with 13 percent adoption and Europe are even further behind with four per cent of all mobile connections.

China and North America will continue to be the leading implementors of the technology; and for the foreseeable future, the rest of the world will continue to rely heavily on 4G until they can invest in the new technology.

Okay, it’s not as bad as it sounds because people who make their living providing products and services across the internet have developed solutions that will include fast, seamless content distribution/enjoyment.

Yeah, the smartphone may just be the best work, play, business, casual communications/work device ever invented.  

It lets people connect with people everywhere and they provide plenty of opportunities to entertain and be entertained.

The lowly smartphone puts research, reading, communications, games and ultimately even videos/movies at your fingertips.

While we have serious gamer friends who will violently disagree, the smartphone is a super video game machine (or kids tell us).

Mobile gaming dominates the video game industry and is projected to reach $126B this year and shoot pass $160B by 2030.

There are hundreds (thousands?) of games people can download and play by themselves, for themselves including puzzles, action, strategy, RPG, simulation games like Subway Surfers, Candy Crush, Genshin Impact and more.

There are also a lot of interactive games that folks can play to pit their talents against those of people around the globe like Roblox, Among Us and more.

The great thing is you can play them anytime, anywhere.

Mobile video games are not only a big entertainment category but it’s also getting bigger and more profitable for game developers and advertisers.

But wait, there’s more.

Yeah, the go-anywhere, constantly with your smartphone is also excellent video content enjoyment tools to catch up on the latest segment of a series or watch a movie on the go or … other stuff.

Signup/Usage – In many areas, particularly in Asia, people watch their streaming video on their most readily available screen – the smartphone.  But if they have the opportunity, they will choose to watch their entertainment on larger screens.

Take Netflix for example, the first – and leading k- streaming company.  

Back in 2007, the mobile pipeline was fragile to say the least but in China, India and well, just about everywhere, the smartphone (which wasn’t very smart back then) was folks’ all-purpose communications, business and entertainment device.

So, they developed unique codecs (encoders/decoders) that would allow the content to adjust speed and performance automatically of the data stream to work flawlessly (O.K., pretty darn good) regardless of the service – 3G, 4G, 5G and tomorrow.

It worked so well, they gave the codecs to the SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) standards group so other streaming services could provide similar quality performance and automatically adjust depending on the viewing device screen and network conditions. 

That’s important because according to eMarketer, almost half of the content people watch is on their mobile device.

Heck, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, even noted last year that his son, a film editor, had watched the epic Lawrence of Arabia on his phone as a way to illustrate the fact that screen size isn’t critical to enjoy your movie watching experience.  

Really, Ted, that’s the best you can do?

The smartphone works in a pinch for watching part of a movie, which is something like a pick-up game of basketball but it’s nothing like playing with the Lakers or Warriors in a packed arena.

The 6-inch screen (maybe slightly larger) is okay for movies but maybe not to satisfy all types of videos – short, long, streaming – especially if you’re in the age group that have had a smartphone with you all of your life.

After all, social media isn’t really about talking with people or texting back and forth or surfing sites to find out who’s doing what with/to whom. It’s about the videos.

Yeah, it’s estimated that YouTube has 2.8B users every month; but the vast majority aren’t watching movies/shows, they’re watching the 30 sec – 5 min videos of “influencers” telling them about makeup to buy, etc.; showing how to enhance/improve product/personal performance; creators doing things folks want to follow; people doing really dumb stuff; and watching ads … lots of ads.

There are also videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and other platforms that can lead folks – especially young folks – down the rabbit hole.

Parents, adult supervisors and friends have to be cognizant of when a person becomes withdrawn, starts developing negative feelings and worse.

According to a study by San Diego State University professor Jean Twenge and others, teens spend three hours a day with their smartphone and that can make them feel even more isolated and alone.

No one can say for certain but teen suicide rates have steadily risen and that self-isolation that the smartphone provides – playing single person games, watching videos of others enjoying themselves/doing stuff – could be a key reason.

According to a recent Deloitte global mobile consumer update, 75 percent of young adults sleep with their phone and check it when they first wake up because of FOMO, and they continue to check/use it throughout the day … just in case.

Overuse/over reliance on the smartphone causes sleep problems, anxiety, social comparisons and worse.  

Of course, there are a lot of benefits that can be derived from the everything, always with you, always on device; but as with almost all things, it requires moderation and that is something that people – especially addictive people – have in short supply.

It has become obvious that smartphones are not here to stay but are becoming more versatile, indispensable and in recent years for the diligent few, a way to make a decent to great living.

What started out as a few video posts has become big business for YouTube, TikTok and other sites as well as casual videographers who have turned their hobby into a very profitable business.

According to Pew Research, more than 70 percent of smartphone users regularly watch the short videos, developing a whole new content creator industry that is projected to surpass a half trillion dollars by 2027.

For those who succeed in developing a major following – usually 1M plus – it can be tremendously rewarding.

It has even attracted professionals in the film/show industry as a means of staying in front of their key audience – project developers/owners, showrunners, studios and streaming acquisition executives.

To stimulate and feed the creator market, Apple and the others have continued to improve their devices – more storage capacity and more/better lenses in addition to making them “slightly” more rugged.

And, of course, that intrigued more adventurous filmmakers to begin using the more portable and less expensive phones (compared to Blackmagic, RED and other cameras) to capture action where mobility and portability were vital.

Turning Pro – Danny Boyle shot the entire 28 Years Later zombie project using the latest iPhone and even developed special rigs designed to hold eight, 10 and 20 iPhones to provide complete 180-degree content capture (l).  At this year’s IBC, Blackmagic introduced its new Camera ProDock to add professional versatility to the iPhone.  

Cinema-quality digital cameras are now commonplace, but they aren’t really small, compact or cheap.

Filmmakers have substituted iPhones for capture devices for many segments where the camera will actually be destroyed during the shoot.

Danny Boyle is considered the first to use the device for his zombie film series, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later and 28 Years Later.

The growing list of film projects has boosted Apple’s cinematic street cred and also stimulated a growing list of filmmaking accessories that make quality content production with the iPhone faster, easier and better.

To validate the iPhone as a part of the pro video arena, Blackmagic introduced a new Camera ProDock at IBC to provide all the professional camera connects filmmakers and the Apple device would need for a few shots or an entire project.

The rapidly expanding high-performance 5G wireless service provided by more than 70 MNOs around the globe and the growing use of relatively economic smartphones will ensure nearly everyone, everywhere can stay in touch with each other and their choices of entertainment they want … even if they don’t want it.

Perhaps you can take some solace in Vincent’s statement in Collateral when he said, “Take comfort in knowing you never had a choice.”

The choice you have is to use it intelligently and civilly and help those around you to do the same.

Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com – is an author of more than 900 articles on management, marketing, communications, industry trends in media & entertinment, consumer electronics and software and applications. He is an internationally recognized marketing/communications consultant with a broad range of technical and industry expertise, especially in storage, storage management and film/video production fields. He also has an Extended range of relationships with business, industry trade press, online media and industry analysts/consultants.