Gunnar Garfors, director of Development at NRK, says: “Consumers don’t just watch TV these days; they are watching TV, surfing the net, downloading music and chatting with friends simultaneously. Mobile TV allows them to engage and customize what they’re viewing in the same manner they have become accustomed to on the internet.”

NRK is one of the biggest media companies in Norway, with several national TV and radio channels as well as major websites. Since 2000, it has been a leader in mobile content and interactive services in Europe.

“Ericsson has seen our value and, from a technical standpoint, we’ve seen Ericsson’s importance. So we’ve found each other,” Garfors says.

NRK has worked with Ericsson for several years. This year, both companies cooperated on a highly successful mobile-TV trial, in which advertisers successfully employed customized marketing for individual mobile-TV viewers.

Advertising content spanned a variety of formats including videos, banners, ticker texts and branded downloadable content. The trial was a success, Garfors says. 

“We saw that … viewing time averages at about 2.5 minutes with mobile TV, but as soon as you interact with the advertisers, the banners and go into the advertisers’ portals, it increases to seven minutes,” he says.

Viewing time has increased nearly threefold, and operators are clearly getting more telecom-network traffic, which means that people are using mobile TV more, he says.

“In Norway we’ve learned through experience that people are keen on taking up new services. They’re curious and of course we have Ericsson as a neighbor, so we have always received advanced technology early.”

And the advertisers already involved are laughing all the way to the bank.