The French broadcaster Vivendi’s Canal+ says broadcasting companies should be primarily responsible for financing and distributing mobile television, not cellular operators, according to MocoNews.net.
The reason is that broadcasters want to reap most of the financial gains rather than cellular operators, the article says. Bertrand Meheut, the head of Canal+, says, “If mobile phone operators pay for the network, they will demand in exchange a substantial part of the payment made by the customer. Certain TV channels are susceptible to the siren calls of the mobile phone operators because they don't want to pay, but they should be well aware of the risks.”
MocoNews.net notes that Canal+ has been involved in several interactive services. “Among these was a texting application that let viewers chat to each other alongside programmes on Canal+ channels, and a mobile TV trial in France, running over DVB-H, concluded last year, where Canal+ provided all the content aggregation and ran the platform (SFR provided a return channel for interactivity, and the e-commerce platform for any related transactions).”
The article says most mobile TV services are directed by cellular operators, although there are some broadcaster initiatives. MocoNews.net points to South Korea, where broadcasters offer free mobile TV compared to the cellular operators’ paid mobile TV — as dictated by the Korean government, as I’ve written previously.
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