Well, maybe it's not so much that you're likely to have a short attention span if you're watching TV on your cell phone as it is that you're less likely to willingly sit through a 30 second commercial while waiting for your program to start.The cabletelevision Advertising Bureau released a report today showing that consumers are only willing to accept ads of about 9 seconds on a cell phone screen. The larger the screen, the more likely they are to sit through a longer commercial. 13 seconds for an iPod or PSP, 18 second for a computer screen, and 42 seconds for television commercial.
Part of this is probably due to the fact that you're used to watching on a big TV screen at home, and your mobile device offers a compromised experience already. So you kind of don't want to put up with other hassles. But on top of that, you're probably not sitting down to spend a few hours with your cell phone. If you're watching TV at all, you're probably watching Daily Show clips, or bits of a newscast or weather forecast. You were only planning on watching for a few minutes, so why waste that time on advertising?
My favorite part: "Of those polled 48% stated that they did not want advertising on alternative devices. Additionally, more than half (51%) said they were not prepared to pay for content in exchange for skipping advertisements on their alternative smaller screen devices."
Translation: content providers want desperately to take advantage of the fact that people are consuming media in new ways, but they have no idea how to get you to pay for the content you're consuming.
