John Deals reveals the ten things that broadcasters need to know if they want to make a success of mobile content.

Last week I promised you the 10 Master Key Steps required to unlock the doors of trading in mobile content. Here goes. Just be careful with that sharp pencil;

  1. If you are looking for deficit funding, for every£10 GBP you make, your investor will usually need to invest around 1 million pounds into the business.

  2. This is usually known as War Chest money. This allows you to go out and aquire content rights that you predict may have a value to the networks, their consumers and your business.

  3. You will need to spend 10 times the usual amount you would on TV rights, in order to distribute that content on mobile platforms.

  4. If you make£50 GBP profit from that content, you are deemed a success and will then be advised to float your company onto the NASDAQ or AIM.

  5. This may raise you another£20,000,000 GBP and the idea then is to set yourself a Burn Target and try and beat it by a few months.

  6. If you don't burn all the money on trade shows, visits to the Far East and call-girls, you need to employ accountants who failed to beat a chimpanzee on a late night ITV quiz show. The aim here is to be unable to report any sales to the content owners. let alone pay them. Ensure you can still present turnover to investors.

  7. In the meantime spend more money on trade shows and press articles showing-off your investments to interested observers.

  8. Disclose that after two years of trading and£30,000,000 of investment, the company has prospered beyond expectations and made a profit of£100 GBP. Twice the profits before it went public, and you will find yourself selling the business for at least double the£30,000,000 market valuation.

  9. Remember never to report actual figures or pay content owners / licensors. That is strictly against the Mobile Protocol.

  10. If you fail start again. If you succeed, sell the business and start again.

You see this is very simple to follow. Content on the move equals money to those trying to peddle it, because investors like the idea of chucking money up a toilet wall and seeing what comes down in the piss. So remember kids,£10 trade equals£1,000,000 investment.

Getting the£10 trade is also a trick. You need to spend some of that potential tenner wining and dining the aggregators and networks.

They will then bury the content about fifty-seven clicks down on a phone epg which hasn't yet been fully Beta tested, to a place where most consumers will never find in this life or the next. Then advertise that you are on a network. Not to consumers obviously, but to other people in the mobile industry. This will attract yet more investment.

Any other ideas?

If you burn all the investment you need to look at what's called ‘does anyone else
have any spare cash they'd like to lose for tax reasons?' otherwise known as
Second Round Funding in city circles.

To satisfy this you have to promise investors that for a chunk of your business they will get some back-end of the£10 this funding will generate in profits, plus unlimited access to drugs and sex. Fair enough.

Yes, the mobile content market is worth millions. In reality this is a Wild West circus of piss-poor investment, poor sales techniques, poor marketing and dubious accountancy practice. Content owners and consumers are getting the bum deal - while city slicker middlemen get fat on thin air.

But, it's content on the move you see. Enjoy!

John Deals is chief executive of JohnDeals.tv and new media consultant to independent producer Airborne TV.

Topics