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Giving People What They Want
Recent statistics compiled by QuickPlay Media 2008
suggest that 46% of people watch mobile TV at home.
Stuart Collingwood asks why this is.
Just why is so much such as the iPod. So what has filled column inches Virgin and, latterly, BT
mobile TV watched while do consumers want to in many a journal. Vision, all provide access
people are at home? How use these devices for? Everyone loves their televi- to great television content
has the service evolved Mapping, social networking, sion. Whether they watch with more or less techno-
and how can mobile TV music and communica- daytime soaps, documen- logical complexity and cost.
complement in-home, tion tools such as email and taries, live sport, comedy
big-screen viewing? IM are popular and logical shows or the latest dose of Making TV mobile and part
Significant questions all. applications for handsets. reality TV, everyone has a of the handset experience
However, in recent years the show they make time for has seemed the obvious
Screens on mobile devices telecoms world has become (or increasingly timeshift next step for mobile carriers.
are getting bigger and increasingly focused on the to watch later). This is a In the same way that they
better. They now feature full development of mobile TV. crucial point – each person moved voice services from
colour as the norm and in has something unique to fixed to mobile, so that now
the last 12 months, manu- Although opinion has been them. Of course, there are consumers are increas-
facturers have added the divided on the form that shows that attract mass ingly using their mobile as
tactile touch screen. The mobile TV would take, audiences in each country the default phone in their
sophisticated smart phones key figures in the industry but most programmes in homes, operators have seen
now have the processing seemed to agree that at this increasingly multi- the opportunity to add tele-
power to run complex appli- some stage and in some channel, digital world, vision (and video services
cations and incorporate the form the majority of people attract niche audiences – generally) to their service
latest broadband connec- would want to view tele- but they are important to offerings. They also have
tivity both cellular and Wi- vision programming on that person (or family). largely unfilled 3G networks
Fi. Moreover, devices like their mobile device. How which are in need of appli-
the iPhone and services much this is due to vendors Great content will always cations. So this sounds an
like Ovi and Omnifone are trying to drive demand find a way into the fabric ideal prospect for the devel-
accelerating the integra- for new applications to of consumers’ lives. You opment of mobile TV, right?
tion of the music player and help the operators spend only have to look at the Disappointingly and some-
phone function – ironically their money on and how success of digital plat- what inevitably, vendors’
threatening the growth of much it has been demand forms in the UK to see the drive to secure control of
standalone music players driven by consumers demand: Freeview, Sky, the market has resulted
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