Virgin Mobile To Drop TV Service

Virgin Mobile is to dump its mobile TV service because of poor customer take-up.

BT, Virgin’s partner on the mobile broadcast project, is disbanding its BT Movio business and has cancelled its contract with GCap Media, the company which owned the service spectrum.

According to a report on MediaGuardian.co.uk, the service is likely to be switched off completely early next year.

In January, NewsLine reported that less than 10,000 handsets had been sold for the Virgin Mobile TV service, despite a £2.5 million advertising campaign (see Poor Sales For Virgin Mobile TV Handsets).

The service, which offered subscribers the opportunity to watch live TV from BBC One, ITV1, Channel 4 and E4, launched in October last year (see BT Announces Partners For Mobile TV Service).

Last week, the European Commission said that broadcasters should use the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds) standard for mobile TV in Europe (see EU Names Mobile TV Standard).

However, the European Broadcasting Union released a statement saying that it did not believe a single European standard was right for the industry (see EBU Does Not Want Single Mobile TV Standard).

Virgin Mobile: www.virginmobile.com