Sony Movies Arrive on AT&T Mobile Phones

Sony is seeking consumers willing to watch a feature-length film on a two-inch screen by launching the first mobile phone movie network in the U.S.

The linear channel, dubbed PIX, will arrive thanks to a deal with AT&T and MediaFLO USA in May. Available on the biggest mobile provider in the U.S., PIX will contain movies from Sony labels including Columbia, TriStar, Screen Gems and Sony Classics.

Sony is negotiating with other U.S. carriers, but wouldn’t say which companies it is in discussions with.

Sony doesn’t expect that viewers will sit and watch a film end-to-end. According to Eric Berger, vp, mobile entertainment at Sony Pictures Television (via Adweek), viewers will likely “snack” on the movies. “This isn’t for people looking to view a movie for the first time,” he says. “It’s okay to miss the beginning.”

The article did not indicate whether the channel will be ad-supported or whether AT&T will charge an extra fee to receive PIX.

Films on PIX will run for a month, with new additions coming weekly. Mobile has mostly been viewed as a marketing platform for theatricals in the U.S., according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Last summer, the audience for mobile video in the U.S. - either from the carrier deck or video content sent by a friend or family member - was up 34 percent from January 2007 to 8.0 million.

That number was just 3.7 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, but the growth rate is impressive and is expected to continue to soar, according to M:Metrics.

With 6.8 million viewers, viral video was the most popular type of video content in the U.S. in 2007 and, midway through the year, the audience had increased 36 percent since the beginning of the year. The audience that’s viewing programmed mobile video - i.e., delivered on-deck over the carrier network - stood at 2.9 million in August 2007, up 28 percent from the beginning of the year.