Mobile television is coming into a realm of its own, with research experts and mobile service providers predicting that the new technology will increase its penetration rate over the next few years.
A report last month by research company Frost & Sullivan forecast the mobile phone arena to receive substantial investment from service providers, predicting mobile service revenues to increase to over $1.5 billion by 2009, up from just $28.8 million in 2004 (see
Mobile Service Providers To Deepen Mobile Content).
Mobile operators are cottoning on to the revenues and advertising levels which can be reached through deepening mobile content, with Virgin Mobile becoming the latest network provider to offer television content to its customer’s phones (see Virgin Mobile Offers TV To Customers).
NTL Broadcast, now named Arqiva, and O2 have also entered into the mobile broadcast arena, announcing plans to test the televisual capabilities of the next generation of mobile phones, with BSkyB, Chart TV Show, Discovery Networks Europe, Shorts International and Turner Broadcasting among the first broadcasters to provide 16 television channels to customers with Nokia’s new 7710 handset (see NTL And O2 Start First Mobile TV Trials).
Arqiva intends to share findings with broadcasters, mobile operators and Ofcom, as Ofcom will need to license spectrums, if a commercial service is to be launched in the UK.
The most recent broadcasters to offer mobile phone content is ITV, which in an attempt to enter one of media’s fastest growing sectors, has announced plans to launch a live mobile phone version of the next series of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here.
Instead of showing the same footage as is shown on television, the new service will show content specifically for mobile phones, which will be more suited to the smaller screens.
ITV has signed up with Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) to look at bringing this, and other hit television shows, to the third generation (3G) platform. Broadcasters will receive a percentage of the money raised by users when content is downloaded.
According to the Wireless World Forum, subscribers to 3G technology will nearly double during 2005, reaching 85 million, up from 45 million in 2004 (see Global 3G Subscribers To Double to 85 Million In 2005).
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