The constant stream of analyst predictions about the rise in mobile advertising may finally be coming true if a recent on the Japanese market is any indication. Japan’s five commercial analogue TV networks are reporting falling revenues from the usual causes including a weak economy but also from the threat of wired and mobile internet advertising which is seeing a dramatic increase almost double last year’s figures.

It seems Japanese consumers are well accustomed to viewing TV programs on their mobile devices, a rend fostered and heavily supported by mobile operators such as KDDI, NTT DoCoMO and Softbank. High speed networks and the move to LTE will only promote more growth. The planned move from analogue to digital television broadcasting is still two years away and this gives mobile operators an excellent opportunity to capture a substantial share of the viewing market and, subsequently, the advertising dollars, or yen, to go with it.

Even though television will remain the largest aggregator of audiences the effect of on-demand services via broadband, Wi-max and high-speed mobile networks will continue to attract greater advertising revenues.

(via The Australian) http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25703614-7582,00.html

It will be interesting to see if the same patterns emerge outside of Japan, which traditionally, is not necessarily the case. We keep seeing reports from analysts about the massive growth in mobile advertising, in particular, but rarely see where the dollars are coming from and who, in the value chain, will actually see them. It would be interesting to see a break down of who will get what, especially what share the network operators may expect. That would be novel! TP