Don’t tell that to the folks at The Score.
Apps are a key part of this strategy. Having plunged into the market early, theScore boasts the number-one sports app for BlackBerry, and is a strong global player on the iPhone. Across all platforms, ScoreMobile is drawing 2 million unique visitors a month.
It’s easy to imagine apps are just a bonus for loyal TV viewers, but theScore’s numbers suggest otherwise: 60 per cent of their mobile traffic comes from outside Canada, where the network doesn’t air.
I wonder if Bell, through its ownership of CTV, can get to a point where 60% of their mobile viewers come from outside Canada? Will they even bother trying as long as they can make money charging people to receive other’s people’s content over the Internet?
The media world is changing very quickly and it threatens to leave behind lumbering dinosaurs that believe the secret to success is limiting customer choice and competition. Bell should remember its experience with the closed eco-system of the Alex Videotex service and how the Internet rendered it irrelevant. Walled gardens of over-priced, metered content will not be any more competitive in the future than they were in 1994 when Alex was pulled off the market.
Using the service could cost as much as $0.30 CA per minute, and many users terminated their subscription upon receiving their first invoice.
