Reiter's Mobile TV Report

Sony Ericsson's "Pocket TV" mobile TV transitions well to YouTube online

Sony Ericsson has posted a mobile television program, “Pocket TV,” (see above) to YouTube in the U.K. and it appears to be generating a significant number of viewers, according to Tech Radar.

The show, which features a moderator in his underwear while talking to celebrities (no accounting for taste!), was originally available just for cellular phones.  But since being posted on YouTube, it has topped more than 2.5 million views, Tech Radar says.

The free TV program isn’t available in the United States, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was available somewhere online.  The show has a Twitter account.

As Tech Radar notes, an interesting point is the success of a cellular TV program on a online venue.  Of course, a variety of mobile TV programs as well as made-for-cellular videos are freely available online in addition to on phones.

MobiTV seeks to license its technology abroad, establish partnerships

MobiTV is looking to expand into new overseas markets, including licensing its technology rather than only aggregating mobile television programs, according to mocoNews.net’s article in The Washington Post.

Based on a Total Telecom magazine interview with Ray de Renzo, chief marketing officer for MobiTV, de Renzo says overseas companies might have better access to programs than MobiTV, which is a reason for the company’s interest in licensing its technology.  (MobiTV currently aggregates a variety of mobile TV programs for cellular operators in the United States and Latin America.)

MobiTV also would be interested in working with related mobile TV companies, such as Qualcomm’s FLO TV, to add to its current program line-up without congesting cellular spectrum, such as for broadcasting a football game or Presidential inauguration. 

Logical strategy

MobiTV in the U.S. typically provides programs for transmission over cellular operators’ existing 3G spectrum.  FLO utilizes its own spectrum allocation and network of antennas.

MobiTV’s strategy certainly isn’t surprisingly.  The California company has been exploring numerous mobile TV options in the U.S. and abroad to diversify its business.

TeleAnalytics predicts 80.8 million - 81.9 million mobile TV users by year-end 2009

TeleAnalytics’ Mobile TV Tracking Service’s forecasts (pdf file) 80.8 million – 81.9 million mobile television users by the end of 2009.

The research firm says, “Despite the financial crisis, mobile TV device sales will at worst remain flat, but an increase of up to two percent may be witnessed with respect to the 2008 sales total.”

The firm’s “Second Anniversary Issue” for mobile TV (see left) provides detailed statistics about usage around the world.  These include:

“Korea: In Q1-09, Korean Mobile TV (both DMBs) device volumes rebounded and were 3% higher than the volumes witnessed in the same quarter one year earlier.  SKT celebrated its 2 millionth S-DMB subscriber in mid-May.

“The Korean automotive MoTV market segment is the first MoTV market segment anywhere in the world to show serious signs of significant saturation.  At the end of Q1-09, the Korean automotive MoTV penetration exceeded 46% of the total addressable (covered) number of Korean passenger car registrations.

“Japan:  Japanese Mobile TV handset volumes have been significantly affected by the financial crisis and are likely to remain around the 6.2 million per quarter mark for the balance of the year. 

“In Q1-09, One-Seg penetration among the total number of Japanese handsets sold climbed to 81% from 61% one year earlier.  End Q1-09 Mobile TV (One-Seg) penetration in the 12+ market segment stood at 39.4%.

“China:  H1-09 CMMB device sales disappointed the CMMB vendors and SARFT's commercialization drive has up to now proven to be badly conceived and executed.  Things are likely to improve in H2-09, but SARFT is quite unlikely to reach its 2009 target (10 million).

“EU:  European MoTV is basically stagnant and as many as half a million DVB-H handsets may be sold this year, due mainly to the normal device replacement process rather than due to new DVB-H adds.

“Brazil:  One-Seg device pricing started falling.  Brazilian ISDB-T USBs cost $225 in Spring 2008, now they cost just over $50.  Additionally, handsets just over the $400 mark were recently introduced (the LG Scarlet).

“The average quarterly 2009 device volume is likely to be more than 28% higher than the volume witnessed in Q4-08 and the Brazilian Mobile TV market has started to get flooded by automotive ISDB-T STBs, which have questionable prospects for more than one reason.

“US:  FLO started expanding shortly after the US ASO.  ATSC-M/H is getting started in late summer.  For both networks, 2010 will be the pivotal year.”

“Air Interfaces:  This year, Mobile TV device sales in Japan and Brazil (ISDB-T) will exceed 27 million units. T-DMB will close the year with more than 16 million users, all of which originated from a single country (Korea).”

Fewer weblog articles possible as I prepare for India

I’m really rushing as I prepare for a trip to India, courtesy of Nokia, to learn about how “real people” (i.e., non-techies) are using relatively basic handsets for business and educational purposes.

I have to ensure all my travel documents are in order, including obtaining an Indian visa, get any inoculations and medicines and complete my regular work in time for a late July flight.  I should be back around the second week in August.

I’ll have a rather hectic schedule in India and I’m not sure if I’ll always be in areas with reliable Internet connections, so my posts here might be light and/or less detailed than normal until I return.

Mobile DTV tests planned for seven Washington, D.C. stations, other cities

The ATSC Mobile TV protocol, promoted by members of the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), will be tested in seven Washington, D.C. television stations and additional stations in at least five other cities through this August, according to Broadcasting & Cable.

Anne Schelle, executive director of the OMVC, says in the article that Washington, D.C. is interesting because the seven stations will be testing broadcasts different power levels.  In addition, a VHF station, WUSA TV, is testing the protocol, and some engineers are wondering whether VHF is viable because it generally requires a larger antenna than UHF, Broadcasting & Cable reports.

The OMVC in partnership with the Association for Maximum Service Television will be conducting tests in Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Mobile TV among regular digital TV

The article notes how the TV stations are integrating their regular broadcast signals with Mobile DTV signals.  Jay Adrick, a vice president at Harris, is helping six of the Washington, D.C. stations employ exciters and encoders for mobile television.  He says most of the stations are using 3.7M bps for Mobile DTV, out of their total 19.4M bps for digital TV.

The mobile transmissions use MPEG-4 compression and a great deal of forward error correction for reliable performance, the article says.  As a result, only about 25 percent of the 3.7M bps — some 900K bps — is employed for transmitting the mobile DTV audio and video signal.

Africk says the Mobile DTV standard enables a station to reduce the error correction and transmit one video stream using a total of 900K bps.  Broadcasting & Cable says encoder manufacturers, such as Harris, Harmonic and Tandberg, are working with their customers to help efficiently compress their regular digital program transmissions in order to free bandwidth for mobile TV.

Harris has shipped Mobile DTV equipment to ten stations and has received orders from three more, the article says.

Michael Jackson memorial service generates huge viewership for FLO TV, GoTV

Michael Jackson’s memorial service on Tuesday (see below) generated not only huge online audiences but also huge mobile television audiences, says Wireless Week.

Qualcomm’s FLO TV says viewership increased more than 80 percent compared to the previous day, and the average viewer spent more than 40 minutes watching FLO, the article reports.  It was one of FLO TV’s best viewing days, and more than 85 percent of subscribers watching FLO between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. watched the memorial coverage.

GoTV Networks was the official mobile partner for the concert promoter and AEG, which owns the Staples Center where the memorial service was held.  GoTV says its transmissions were congested because of the large number of subscribers trying to access the programs, but the company was able to resolve the problems, Wireless Week says.

GoTV’s press release says it was broadcasting the memorial service over six of its programs and nine cellular operator partners.

Increase in viewers no surprise

I’d be shocked if the memorial service didn’t result in a huge number of mobile TV viewers.  Major live events often generate significant increases in viewers.

For example, major sports events, such as the World Cup, result in many new mobile TV subscribers.

CBS' "Big Brother" on FLO TV, SMS interactivity, simulation game, blog, etc.

If you’re a fan of the “Big Brother” television show on CBS (I am definitely not), you can get a multitude of multimedia tie-ins, including SMS interactivity and mobile television, according to InteractiveTV Today.

For mobile TV, “Big Brother” is transmitted over Qualcomm’s FLO TV, which is available over Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility.  Also, via SMS you may “interact with and influence the show,” says InteractiveTV Today.  (Perhaps you can “influence” the network to never to show this junk.)

In addition, CBS is offering a “mobile simulation game” to “allow viewers to compete in the ‘Big Brother’ house as one of the past contestants, playing various mini-games for such show elements as Head of Household and Power of Veto,” the article says.  If you still can’t get enough, you may sign up for SMS alerts (see top left). 

Will the excitement never cease?!

But wait — there’s more!  CBS offers two “Big Brother” Twitter feeds (@BigBrotherScoop and @BigBrotherHoH), a broadband video show with chats of the participants evicted from the show (I.Q.s over 75?), an online contest, a blog and oodles of other Internet-related excitement.

Despite my entirely justified disparagement of this doltish show, it’s certainly incredibly popular worldwide (so is sports — go figure!), and CBS is hot to employ as many Internet and cellular techniques as it can to increase its popularity. 

As a fan of mobile TV and convergence, I certainly can’t fault CBS for pulling out all the stops.  It makes sense, and I always am interested in Internet and cellular tie-ins to TV programs and movies.

Reuters reports users prefer mobile video apps, not broadcast TV

Reuters headlines its article, “Apps a nail in coffin of broadcast mobile TV,” suggesting that cellular users prefer to pick and chose individual TV programs/channels and movies rather than accepting the traditional broadcast TV model with bundles of programs.

The article sees the future for mobile TV as downloading applications for specific video services, such as the apps available via Livestation (see below). 

Reuters notes that a survey by KPMG and the Mobile Entertainment Forum showed almost 40 percent of consumers had watched video on their handsets, and that 52 percent said the experience was “satisfying” compared to 38 percent of a much smaller number of consumers who had tried broadcast mobile TV.

What’s interesting to me is that only about half of the consumers had a satisfying experience downloading videos, which isn’t a particularly impressive number.  It’s not a statistic to be proud of.

Testing options

Reuters reports that handset manufacturers are testing different options.  For example, Samsung and Sony Ericsson are offering full length movies, Apple’s iPhone can download TV shows (and movies) and Nokia is working with the creator of the TV program “Heroes” to produce a cellular project for launch this summer on the Ovi Store.

Ben Wood, the research director at CCS Insight, says, “Old-fashioned broadcasters who are wedded to the old broadcast model have the biggest challenge because those days are over; consumers expect their favorite content when they want it, on whatever platform is most convenient — TV, PC or a mobile phone."

If this concept is indeed valid — and it remains to be seen — it doesn’t bode well for, as an example, Qualcomm’s FLO TV, which broadcasts regular TV programs on handsets, although not necessarily at the same times they are broadcast on the networks.

Wired says: "Americans don't care about mobile TV"

Wired has published an article headlined, “Americans Don’t Care About Mobile TV” that discusses why mobile television hasn’t done very well in the United States.

The problem, the article concludes, isn’t technological, but cultural, although technology is a problem, too.  For example, Americans mostly commute by car (although, of course, many use public transportation) and can’t watch (or shouldn’t watch) mobile TV while they’re driving.

The compares to the Japanese, many of whom spend one hour or two each way commuting via public transportation.  Wired says Americans want to watch television on their large-screen TVs, not on tiny phone screens.

Target audience will pay

Flint Pulskamp, program manager for IDC’s wireless semiconductor research group, says a small percentage of people want to watch mobile TV and are willing to pay for better image quality, such as Qualcomm’s FLO TV network.

He says the studies indicate the target audience for mobile TV is willing to pay $15 a month to avoid advertising and obtain good quality images.  Hmmm, if he’s implying that means FLO TV, the programs certainly aren’t commercial-free.

Pulskamp also notes that some studies say the mobile TV business must offer free, ad-supported programs.  Perhaps he’s thinking about members of the Open Mobile Video Coalition who are developing free, ad-supported channels using their existing broadcast TV spectrum.

I disagree about payment plans

“Regardless, free-over air [broadcasts] will likely have a very slow uptake, and the very limited number of phones with tuners will make it even slower,” he says in Wired.  Pulskamp says Americans probably will be relegated to ordering individual shows via video on demand, rather than paying a flat monthly fee for unlimited access to bundles of programs. 

I don’t agree with that.  Americans prefer a flat monthly fee for unlimited service — for most mobile services — rather than having to buy things individually.  That’s not always the case, of course, as, for example, iTunes has demonstrated with with people ordering individual songs.

Tuong Nguyen, the lead mobile TV analyst for Gartner Research, isn’t any more optimistic than Pulskamp.  He says, “Remember those portable TVs from the ’80s?  How many people [in America] had those?  And that was free.

“Now, they want 15, 30, 40, or 50 bucks to watch it on a two-inch screen.  Are you kidding me?”

A bit overboard

Nguyen is going somewhat overboard on pricing.  Most mobile TV is $15 a month to $30 a month, although the price can be more if a subscriber picks more mobile TV packages from, for example, Sprint. 

Sprint offers a bundled packages for a flat monthly fee, but it’s also possible to add more subscriptions.

Mobision TV in Iraq looks to offer mobile TV in other countries

Mobision TV (see left), which launched mobile television service in Iraq in May (as I’ve written), would like to expand its business to other countries, according to Andre Abi-Nassif, the senior vice president of Mobision and deputy general manager of Alsumaria TV, the satellite TV network providing content to its Mobision venture.

Abi-Nassif e-mailed me that Mobision is ready to develop mobile TV services to provide up to 20 channels, including subscription management using SMS, for DVB-H systems.  In Iraq, Mobision offers about 20 channels, requires a Mobision-supplied microSD card and sells the service with several prepaid plans.