Challenges Ahead for Mobile TV

Mobile TV is still the talk of the town, although there’s still a fair way to go before we have flawless commercial services — outside of Japan and Sth Korea, at least. Alon Ironi, chief executive of Siano Mobile Silicon, predicts the market won’t really get going next year: “A lot of the top-tier companies are starting their [mobile-TV handset] designs now for the second half of 2006.” Next year, said Ironi, “is mainly about pilots; 2007 will be the real ramp of the market.” This quote is from an Infoweek article which covers the technical aspects of mobile TV, such as screens and battery life, and how they will effect the commercial timing.VNUnet has run a piece about pricing structures for mobile TV based on comments by Bena Roberts from Current Analysis, who claims that “the user experience is secondary to the fashion statement of having TV on the mobile device”. Roberts argues that the best way to charge users for mobile TV is to bundle it with their 3G service, so it appears they’re getting it for free.“Consumers tend to shy away from monthly subscription plans on top of existing fees because of the charges. Pay-as-you-go plans, on the other hand, make users fear their bill at the end of the month. A better option, according to Roberts, is to bundle mobile TV with 3G subscription plans. “This way, users simply ‘get’ free mobile TV,” he explained.”The Chicago Tribune has compared the criticisms that no-one will want to watch TV on a mobile screen to the ones that were levelled at television when it first came out and suggests an answer as to why anyone would want to do so: “The answer is control, just as it was 50 years ago”.It then goes on to the differences…”Here’s why portable video is so cool: It changes us, but more important, we can change it. Don’t like what you’re watching on your cell phone? Grab your digital camcorder and make your own show. Companies called aggregators are gathering as much video as they can to get airtime on mobile phone networks. They are striking deals with independent producers, sharing any revenue without taking away any rights. Some of the stuff they’re sifting through isn’t interesting: high school football games, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” rejects, class video projects, shorts created by video game owners who have used the games’ characters and sets to make mini-movies…But like the earliest prospectors, they’re looking for gold among the dreck before word gets out and the gold rush is on. And that’s the point: Portable video gives the best of these clips a home. The same people who dismiss this democratization of video misunderstood the power of blogs and podcasts to blur the lines between spectator and creator.”

Mobile Phone Operator 3 Buys TV Station

Italian mobile phone operator 3 yesterday became the first mobile company to buy a TV station, snapping up regional Italian broadcaster Canale 7 as part of its plan to launch a nationwide digital TV service for mobiles.Canale 7, based in northern Italy with a network that reaches about 40% of the population, owns a digital TV licence. 3 intends to use the licence for a nationwide mobile TV network to complement its wireless network. The aim is to create what the company believes will be one of the world's first "triple-play" mobile services - ie, offering a telephone, TV and internet access in one device.

via Guardian

TV moving to Mobile?

TV is moving to an on-demand format, different media and different formats… and now even the most cautious players are finally getting on board.“There’s no question we’re shifting,” CBS Chairman Les Moonves told Reuters in an interview last week. “The idea of video on demand three years ago was something we didn’t consider as seriously as we do today.”CBS offers episodes of its popular crime drama franchise CSI on-demand through cable operator Comcast Corp. Moonves estimates CSI will reap over $1 billion in revenue for the network, starting with traditional television commercials and extending to DVDs, licensed games and Internet clips.“You’ll be able to get that on your cell phones,” Moonves said, referring to tailored short clips of CSI that could be available within a year. “While you’re waiting on line at the grocery store, you’ll be able to get a ‘mobisode’ of CSI.”

Fox sells Mobile TV in Latin America

Fox — using its MyFox.tv site — has plans to sell mobile TV in Mexico and throughout Latin America with the motto “La tv que sigue”, “the TV that keeps going”.The normal figures are trotted out to claim there’ll be a market: there were 30,ooo downloads of the first program designed for mobiles, Conspiracy, and by the end of the year there will be 190 million mobiles in all Latin America — 8 mobiles for each cable TV subscription. Of course, the percentage of these mobiles that will be able to show mobile TV is not mentioned…In addition to TV MyFox will also include ringtones, games, wallpapers and an application to send SMS branded with icons from shows such as 24, The Simple Life and Buffy.El Universal mentions that the price for these services will range between 3 and 45 pesos.

Vivendi Urges Clarification on Mobile TV Rules

Vivendi Universal (which controls France’s second largest mobile operator SFR) has stepped up pressure on French regulators to determine how mobile TV will be governed in the country. “It is not yet clear whether the new TV on mobile market will be regulated by France’s media watchdog, the CSA, or by the ARCEP telecoms regulator… “We want the regulator to act more quickly and make clear as soon as possible what the regulatory framework will be,” Vivendi Universal Chief Executive Jean-Bernard Levy told a telecoms conference in Montpellier. “France is losing speed.”The issue of regulation promises to be a problem in a number of countries, although an equal number are taking steps to clarify the issue.

Mobile TV is the Future

“The age of the iPod is over, they argue. The future is mobile TV.”Indeed…the electronics industry will focus on mobile TV at the IFA trade fair in Berlin this week in a bid to convince operators and retailers to “take the gamble on mobile TV”.“The electronics industry is looking beyond audio, claiming it will be video services, and TV in particular, that convince consumers to upgrade their phones.”It looks like mobile TV will be a popular and profitable feature to have…I doubt it will be embraced by everybody but it only takes a minority of users interested in watching mobile TV to make the investment worthwhile.“TV programming has quite popular in many countries. In Romania, where Orange launched mobile TV last October, 90 percent of customers with compatible handsets have accessed the service. In France, where Orange has 50, mostly live, channels, mobile TV accounts for 55 percent of 3G data use on its network.”

KBS Lauching Mobile TV in Korea

The Korean State Broadcaster — KBS – will launch mobile TV services on December 1 using terrestrial DMB technology. It’s touted as “the world’s first terrestrial mobile service” … the current mobile broadcast TV effort in Korea is satellite based.