Advanced Television

Mobile TV slow to take off

August 24, 2009

Mobile TV has so far failed to deliver on its promise of ubiquity, but analysts expect global user numbers to increase to 54 million in 2009.

Analysts also predict that by 2013 there will be about 300 million people watching TV on the so-called 'third screen.'

The study, conducted by In-Stat, revealed that mobile TV users watch at least three times a week, with 20 per cent watching daily. Two-thirds of respondents in the white paper said they watched mobile TV for 30 minutes or more on the days they tuned in. By comparison, in the leading markets of Japan and Korea, viewers are glued to their third screen for over an hour.

“Mobile TV is just not as big a deal as we all thought it would be,” Frank Dickson of In-Stat commented. “The idea combines the two biggest things around: TV and phones. Everyone has a TV and everyone has a mobile phone. So of course the industry thought the prospect of bringing the two together was going to be huge. “In reality, live mobile TV has been very slow to take off,” claimed Dickson.

….

InStore Broadcasting picks up Prisa stake

US-based InStore Broadcasting Network has agreed to take a 5 per cent stake in Prisa as part of a distribution joint venture covering Spain and Latin America.

The Spanish company said the deal was the latest in a series aimed at "bringing in strategic partners that contribute technology and new markets". Prisa has been under pressure to sell assets or bring in other investors for about 18 months, after being forced to buy out minority investors in Sogecable, a subsidiary of Prisa, which runs its Digital Plus pay television service and free-to-air channel Cuatro. The move loaded about E2bn of debt onto the company.

Categories: Mobile, Mobile TV, Research Library