THE mobile phone operator 3 generated an estimated £250,000 this year as customers watched the recently completed series of Big Brother from the comfort of their own handsets.

Highlights of the reality show were downloaded 360,000 times at 50p a time. A 75p-a-minute live television stream was also watched on 90,000 occasions, according to data released to The Times.

If viewers watched only one minute each of the live broadcasts, 3’s total revenue would be about £250,000, although the company declines to confirm the precise amount of Big Brother income it generated.

Mobile phone providers are normally extremely reluctant to give out viewing figures for their video content, fuelling the belief that the numbers of people tuning in are far lower than hoped, three years after video-capable third generation services were launched in Britain.

However 3 says that it is already making a profit on video content — of which the most popular was Big Brother during the eleven weeks in which the Channel 4 show, produced by Endemol, was on the air.

“This is indicative of the state of the market,” Graham Oxby, the marketing director of 3, said. The company has found that subscribers like to watch “big branded TV, music, games and comedy”, while more serious content such as news “doesn’t set the world on fire”.

“It was not what we expected when we started third-generation services,” Mr Oxby said: “It was a classic case of listening to the market research, acting on it and finding that what people want is not what they say. It’s entertainment that’s really important.”

The predominant mentality of video mobile consumers is revealed in the most popular choice of downloads. The most accessed clip, entitled “Fun in the Pool,” was downloaded 13,000 times, and similarly themed content proved popular with mobile viewers.

However, 3 could have done better if a few customers had been rash enough to stay with the live pictures of the Big Brother household throughout the series. At 75p a minute, that would have netted £83,160 for each viewer who sat through the entire sixth series.

Mr Oxby said that the company would review its prices next year and charge “more of a flat rate” in an effort to tempt viewers away from the TV set.

Despite 3’s confident stance on its revenue and viewing figures for Big Brother, they are still modest compared with the television audience. The average nightly viewing figure for the sixth series was 4.5 million, and rival broadcasters estimate that the show generates revenues of as much as £80 million — a figure that Channel 4 says is an exaggeration.

Ironically, Endemol is owned by the Spanish phone company Telefonica, which paid €5.5 billion (£3.73 billion) for the business in the belief there was a synergy between telecoms and media. However, just as the market for mobile video begins to develop, Telefonica has no mobile phone business in Britain and is unlikely ever to recoup its original investment.

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