You’re Doing It Wrong: Anime Network on Ovi Will Fail in the US

When ADV’s Anime Network announced that it would roll out VOD services on Comcast and DirecTV, it made a small mention of launching the service on Nokia’s recently opened Ovi store within the Ovi Phone portal.

The idea is sound but there are many problems, some obvious and more not so obvious unless one pays attention to the wireless industry.

The biggest and most glaring issue is that the general public does not know what Ovi is, much less anime fans, despite Nokia spending millions in marketing. The only people that have a clue about the service are those involved with the wireless industry like myself, or these guys.

Another problem is that there are only three handsets directly sold in the US that directly support Ovi services, two are sold directly by Nokia with no major service provider subsidy in the XpressMusic 5800 and E71while the other is offered by AT&T in the E71x for much more than the average fan is willing to pay, based on informal polling and prior experience in sales.

Even if a fan were to bite the bullet and buy either device for $399.99 and $299.99 respectively, or go to AT&T and buy the E71x on a new agreement with data plan for $199.99, you still have to buy episodes individually for $1.99.

The quality of the episodes is merely passable as they average ~28MB and are fixed at below QVGA resolution with 2 channel AAC audio. For the same or even less money, I could buy the episodes on my iPhone at a higher resolution with better audio quality.

If Anime Network wants to do VOD over mobile the right way, it would be better off signing agreements directly with carriers to be placed in their respective portals (Cellular Video for AT&T, VCAST Video for Verizon) and offer a monthly subscription as it currently does with Sprint instead of relying on third-party content distributors like ZooVision and expecting it to succeed based on non-existent name recognition.