LIVE FROM MWC19 LOS ANGELES: Warner Bros. Entertainment’s chief digital officer spotlighted the growing role of mobile as a means of consuming content, tipping 5G to fan the flames by opening new avenues for users to stream media.

During the closing keynote, Thomas Gewecke (pictured, right), said “mobile is becoming an incredibly important platform for video consumption,” not only for short-form content, but increasingly also long-form.

“When we look at teen and young adult audiences in particular, more and more they’re spending almost as much time watching video on their phone as on the TV or the PC,” he noted, adding mobile is one of the “largest and fastest growing categories for mobile gaming as well.

He said Warner Bros. Entertainment is now looking at 5G as a way to build on the benefits of mobile and deliver new content experiences for consumers “in places that previously haven’t been easy or practical to get to”.

For instance, he noted autonomous vehicles could free-up time for gaming or viewing content, citing potential to be “the single largest new tranche of entertainment time made available to the public since the invention of the smartphone”.

Next-generation connectivity could also help streamline broadcast and film production, eliminating the need for satellite uplink vehicles at live events and making it easier to transfer clips to studios.

“These are gigantic files, and today often the only practical solution is to put them on hard drives and actually physically move them and it takes a long time. So we think 5G could help us fundamentally innovate even in that core production part of our business.”