Are you a European who watches mobile TV?
Written on May 5, 2008 – 10:50 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
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The New York Times business section opens today with an interesting story about mobile TV. For those of you who think this is a service born for the niche - except for Asia, you seem to be mistaking. Alright, in the US it is: Verizon Wireless has been offering this service since March 2007, but it has fewer than 100,000 paying viewers. However, some European countries have adopted the service entusiastically — in Switzerland, 40,000 people watch news broadcasts on a daily basis, and a million Italians pay 19 euros a month to watch a dozen mobile TV channels.
Several American and European investors have started to expand the infrastructure on which mobile TV relies, which the New York Times describes as “special transmission towers that beam to tiny receivers in the mobile phones.” In the UK, France and Germany, mobile video services like these are on their way. AT&T is shaking things up in the US by launching a mobile TV service as well.
These rapid developments exceed the expectations of experts. A year ago, research firm Screen Digest predicted that the adoption of mobile TV services in the UK might have to wait until 2012, due to a shortage of spectrum. The new infrastructure might speeds things up.
The big question remains though: who will watch mobile TV? People stuck in traffic jams or public transport? And still, when caught in a situation like this, wouldn’t you prefer an episode of Seinfeld or anything but a news broadcast? I suspect that people have already found their sources for news: the TV bulletin in the morning, mobile news sites, screens in public transport and for that matter, the newspapers. Who would want to pay another 20 euros for 100 seconds of news broadcasts?
Europe, mobile, Mobile TV, New York Times, Television, united kingdom, United States, us, Verizon Wireless
AP brings local news stories to your phone Telefónica will invest €40m in technology companies Traveling in Europe goes hand in hand with connectivity: UK allows mobile calls on flights Would the best European start-up please stand up? CityTherapy.com: Social network to discover European cities
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3 Responses to “Are you a European who watches mobile TV?”
By Bob Boynton on May 5, 2008 | Reply
The people “stuck in public transport” one can observe are people on the underground in London. There is a remarkable amount of news reading there — also a remarkable amount of phone use. Of course, most of them are reading a free newspaper the name of which I forget. Perhaps they would be watching the news if it was free.
By Maritza Guaderrama on May 11, 2008 | Reply
Hi,
Maybe you would like to know facts about Spain. dnx developed an online survey last year and this is the report: dnx trends on Mobile TV:
http://dnxgroup.com/ideas/tren.....iosENG.pdf
Thanks