BSkyB (British Sky Broadcasting), through its Sky Mobile TV service in the U.K. will offer Sky Sports channels 1, 2 and 3 as well as all 92 soccer matches of the Barclays Premier League, according to a press release in Cellular-News.
Sky Mobile TV might be the largest 3G mobile television content service in Europe with more than 30 channels that offer news, music, entertainment and, obviously, sports, the release says. Vic Wakeling, managing director of Sky Sports, says more than seven million people per month access the company’s content via cellular.
The service, launched in 2005 in the U.K. over Vodafone, offers, I believe, two bundled packages with Sky Mobile TV (see below one package).
Sky packages, pricing
Sky Mobile TV is offered over Vodafone in the U.K. and Ireland, Orange and, within a few weeks, T-Mobile, according to the release. Vodafone charges 5 pounds (about $200, given the ridiculous currency exchange rates; okay, so it’s really about $10.13) per month for the Sky News, Sports & Factual Pack.
Other Vodafone U.K. mobile TV offerings range from 3 pounds ($6) to 10 pounds ($20.27).
Sky Sports also will offer its own mobile TV sports package, that will include Sky News, and a Sky Sports Xtra mobile TV package later in the year.
Making sense
Personally, I don’t watch any sports on regular TV; it’s much more boring than watching grass grow. But I do indeed watch sports on mobile TV — not because I like it any more than on cable/broadcast TV, but because I need to know about all the content as part of my wireless data consulting.
Sports is, obviously, a major mobile TV offering and a reason a fair number of people subscribe. If you like sports and you’ll miss a match while you’re away from a television, subscribing to mobile TV makes a lot of sense, although not all sports services for cellular are successful.
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