Big Brother Live Makes The Leap To Mobile Phones

Channel 4’s interactive division, 4Interactive, has announced a deal with mobile software company Vemotion to bring live coverage of this year’s Big Brother to viewers’ mobile phones.

The deal enables fans of the show to watch live streams from the house via video-capable GPRS handsets. Channel 4 trailed the technology earlier on this year during its screening of Shattered, a game show inviting contestants to stay awake for as long as possible.

Channel 4 claims the latest development in Big Brother‘s seemingly unending revenue streams is the first of its type in the world, using technology known as H.264 the quality is twice that of the previously employed MPEG-4 mobile video standard. Vemotion’s coverage of Big Brother is being promoted on other mobile content websites and Channel 4 expects a high uptake from avid viewers.

Commenting on the deal, Andy Taylor, head of 4Interactive, said: “Mobile streaming is an exciting new technology and we are delighted to be working with Vemotion to offer this cutting-edge service to viewers. Big Brother is a massive show with fans who are desperate to keep up and we now have the means for them to do so.”

Tony Antoniou, CEO of Vemotion, added: “Sir Clive Sinclair might have invented pocket televisions but we are the first to get people watching them. Just about everyone carries a mobile; Vemotion’s ability to deliver high-quality live video over GPRS networks is the beginning of something new, which will appear quite normal in a few years time. We are very happy to have started it all off!”

This year’s Big Brother has already got off to a flying start, despite being little more than a week old. Earlier this month a peak of 5.2 million viewers tuned into Channel 4 to watch the first eviction of the series, with political activist Kitten being forced to leave the show due to continuous rule-breaking. Ratings for the series so far have averaged 4.6 million viewers and 23% of the available peak-time audience (see More Than Five Million Watch Kitten Get The Boot).

Channel Four: 020 7396 4444 www.channel4.com

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