BBC News writes glumly about the Telegent Systems/In-Stat analog mobile television report, which I discussed a few days ago, but quotes an analyst who has some encouraging words at the end of the article about free mobile TV.
The article’s headline is “Mobile TV ‘very slow’ to take off,” referring to the relatively lackluster growth of the business — at least compared to rosier predictions of several years ago. However, Frank Dickson, vice president of the mobile Internet group at In-Stat, says free mobile TV is the key to success.
“When we can get TV on our handset which is funded by advertising instead of subscriptions, we see a strong uptake. At the end of the day, nothing is more compelling than free,” Dickson says.
Good news for Mobile DTV?
The Telegent/In-Stat report promotes the use and growth of free analog mobile TV because (or when) it offers the same programs as traditional broadcast TV. If “free” is a crucial component of success, perhaps the efforts of the Open Mobile Video Coalition will pay off.
As I’ve written before, the Coalition’s broadcast TV members are testing Mobile DTV, which uses the members existing TV spectrum for transmitting programs to mobile devices. The assumption is the programs would be free through advertisements, and available on portable devices, especially cellular phones, that would include the appropriate receivers and software.
Free mobile TV is very popular in a few countries in Asia/Pacific, specifically Japan and South Korea. However, despite the large number of viewers, these advertiser-supported offerings have problems generating sufficient revenues.
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