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THE CANADIAN PRESS

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MONTREAL - Global cellphone users are "snacking" and "sipping" their way through the Beijing Olympics but what they're doing is consuming content: watching bits of events, checking medal counts or finding highlights on the go.

The Olympics are not just a living room experience and people are using their mobile phones to find out what they want to know in real time, said Nic Covey of U.S.-based Nielsen Mobile, which tracks the behaviour of what it calls mobile consumers.

"It's clear to us that the Olympics have been a watershed moment for mobile media," Covey said Wednesday from San Francisco.

"The time-sensitive nature of the Olympics and the around-the-clock schedule of events have led many mobile consumers to view their phones as the place to stay connected."

Nielsen has projected that millions of global consumers are expected to follow the Beijing Games on their cellphones with those in the United States and United Kingdom expected to lead the way.

"We argue that we've already hit a critical mass of audience and with the Olympics that audience is only going to get bigger. I think we will see impressive numbers for mobile consumption with the Olympics."

Covey said consumers who want to watch complete events live will look to television and have shorter viewing experiences on their cellphones.

"Consumers are really just looking for that Olympic snack on their phone," he said.

"We know that people are using the phone to look at the TV schedule, to look at the medal counts, to look at highlights, photos of the day and consumers are even looking at athlete info on their phones and are just reading up a little bit on the athletes and really surrounding themselves with contextual data from the Olympics that get them pumped up for watching the events live in the evening."

Nielsen has said that gymnastics and track and field are among the most popular events for mobile phone users to watch at this year's Games.

In Canada, Bell is offering cellphone subscribers live CBC-Radio-Canada coverage for a one-time fee of $8. The vast majority of that content is live but also contains video highlight packages and other features, Bell said.

Syndicated technology columnist Marc Saltzman called Olympic watching via cellphone "sip entertainment where you are just sipping little bit here and there."

"You want to check in and see how many medals your country is getting or see highlights of the latest (Michael) Phelps swim and I think that it makes sense," he said.

"You're not going to watch it for three hours in your living room with your significant other with a bowl of popcorn."

The question becomes who pays for this service and how.

"We shouldn't have to pay for it if we have to sit through commercials. But if the commercials are taken out and it's reasonable, I think Canadians are willing to pay for it, if it's not going to go over their (cellphone) data plan," said Saltzman, who writes for the MSN website and numerous publications.

"Maybe in the future when you buy a digital package you will pay a little more a month for mobile access."

A study by California-based Telegent Systems found that 72 per cent of consumers were very likely or likely to watch the Beijing Olympics on their cellphones if they could receive free, live local broadcasts.

The study also found that the strongest interest in access to the Games via cellphones was in emerging mobile phone markets.

More than 80 per cent of consumers in China, Thailand and India were interested in watching the Beijing Games on their mobile phones, followed by Brazil at 77 per cent and Mexico at 67 per cent.

The study was conducted with more than 1,200 respondents for Telegent, which focuses on products for mobile television.