Mobibase to offer ad-supported mobile TV, apply for French DVB-H license

Mobibase, a French mobile content aggregator (see below), is offering some 20 channels of advertiser-supported mobile television and videos, plus for-a-fee ringtones and screensavers, as well as planning to apply for a DVB-H mobile TV license in France, reports “Rapid TV News.”

The mobile TV channel, One TV, offers such fare as BikiniTV, BollywoodTV, StripTV, GutsTV and, “coming soon,” BlondeTV, BimboTV and Pin-UpTV (see below).  Well, if this is free for cellular subscribers, it seems more like “You-Get-What-You-Pay-For-TV.”

But, each to his (or her) own.  I’m no censor, I don’t like censorship, and adult content certainly is one of the revenue generators for mobile TV, as I recently noted. 

I’m certainly not the target market, either demographically or, well, intellectually.  Mobibase is aiming for 15 year olds to 35 year olds, according to “Rapid TV News.”  The company’s Web site says 29 channels are available.

Available for French cellular subscribers

One TV is already available in France for Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom, the article says.  In addition, One TV will be available soon on selected Nokia cellular phones as part of the handset manufacturer’s Video Center.

One TV also will be available on RATP (Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens), the Paris transportation authority for the city’s buses and subways.  RATP provides a variety of transportation-related information that’s compatible with cellular phones via WAP and SMS (see left).

Hmmm. I can just see the New York City Transit Authority or the Washington (D.C.) Area Transportation Authority signing a deal with One TV and advertising “Strip TV” and “BimboTV”!

Applying for mobile TV license

“Rapid TV News” reports that Mobibase will add ten new channels to One TV until the end of 2008, when it expects to garner 100,000 unique visitors for one million TV and video on demand sessions.  The company also will apply for a mobile TV license, employing the DVB-H protocol, in France.

Mobibase will be exhibiting in the M-tertainment Pavilion at the CTIA’s Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2007 conference in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.  I’m going to try to see them when I’m there.